


Make Me Weightless, Let Me Fly

by Lionescence



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Inspired by another fanfic, Keith (Voltron) Whump, M/M, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post-S7, Protective Hunk (Voltron), references to the Komar Robeast, resolution to The Journey Within
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionescence/pseuds/Lionescence
Summary: One battle is over. Recovery is slow, steady. Everyone is adjusting.A new, more personal battle is beginning, and with the climax of the war on the horizon, the Voltron family need to secure this fight, or risk losing the final battle before it even begins.Inspired by, and roughly followsFroldGapp'sCrashing





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FroldGapp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/gifts).



> Thank you, [FroldGapp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp), for letting me jump off this fic of yours. It's haunted me since the day you posted it, and I am very, very grateful that you've let me play in your sandbox, if briefly. 
> 
> You don't have to have read their fic before reading this, but I highly recommend you do, as it is an incredible piece of work. Please enjoy!

“Mom? When you were here, with the doctors… were they — I mean, were you okay with everything?”

On the screen, Krolia tipped her head to one side in question. He’d always thought he got that little tic from his father, but perhaps his mother had learned it from him, too. “What do you mean?”

Keith swallowed; he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation but he’d lost sleep over it, felt so many old insecurities, old lonelinesses come back to haunt him. “They, they ran tests? On you.”

His mother’s expression softened to something bordering on sad, tentative. “Oh, darlin’.” She called him many things — _kit, sweetheart_ , a Galra word he was still learning to pronounce — but when she called him _darlin’_ he could hear his father’s voice, too, because it was how he’d said it, and it was the only word she said with that same inflection. “Of course I was okay. You were — they were concerned about your rate of recovery. Once they had the test results they were able to adjust your medications accordingly, and you improved so much.” She seemed to hesitate, then said, “We nearly lost you, sweetheart.”

He’d known. He still wondered if he’d died, however briefly: he had vague memories of being… displaced, of feeling nothing at all, before the light of a single silver star caught him, compelled him to follow, and drown in warm words, beseeching — “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I wanted to make sure you were okay with it all.”

“Keith.” And her voice was firm, almost shocked, that he felt his spine straighten in preparation for some kind of admonishment. “You’re my son. I would have done more, given more, for you. Those tests were nothing, if it means you’re safe and well.”

He smiled, nodded, hoped that she couldn’t see that he was only smiling for her sake.

They spoke a little longer. Once Keith was discharged from hospital and they’d made their visit to his father’s grave together, Krolia went off-world with Kolivan, keeping refugee transports safe and letting any other Blades out there know that Earth was now the new hub and home of a more active, more visible Blade of Marmora, having commandeered the Blue Lion’s old hiding place — somehow, the Garrison still hadn’t found it — as their headquarters. They exchanged a few more words, an _“I love you”_ each, and Keith put his data pad down, sighing.

He’d never had to miss family before. Not like this. He suddenly felt very young, and very lost.

There was a _pop_ and a whiff of ozone, and Kosmo was there, head immediately in his lap, whining. He pushed his muzzle into Keith’s belly, a gentle nudge of a reminder. “I know, buddy,” he said, absently dragging his fingers through the cosmic wolf’s thick fur. “Let’s get going.”

The thing was, he didn’t really want to go anywhere. He’d been sitting, dressed and ready in his uniform, for the last hour, and calling his mother had been his last out. He hadn’t spoken about what happened with James to anyone but Hunk, but even then he knew word had spread about his heritage. It hadn't taken long for rumours about him to take hold when he was sixteen; there was no reason for it to take less time now. He didn’t want to be seen, he still didn’t, but Hunk — kind, wonderful Hunk — had asked him to come out so he could show Keith around the hangars, talk him through the MFE fighter specs.

_“They are **so** awesome, I’ve been looking at the engineering logs and man, there is so much cool stuff about them! I’ve read all about them and tinkered with Leifsdottir’s a bit so I can talk you through everything. You’ll love them!”_

He couldn’t say no.

But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how closely Kosmo stuck to his heels, licking his hand every so often in comfort, the journey to the hangars was not peaceful for Keith. It was as if he’d never left, as if nothing changed: whispers and eyes followed him, wordless questions and silent judgements. In the two years with Krolia Keith had learned a lot more about his heritage, and what he was capable of. He learned new skills and controlled others, but he was still just a human with Galra hearing: try as he might, he couldn’t block out what he could hear, what he wasn’t supposed to be able to hear.

_“Galra.”_

_“— stole Captain Shirogane’s position —”_

_“ — should wipe out his records, if he isn’t even human —”_

_“— guess he’s even more of a freak than we figured —”_

_“— how can he lead Voltron if he’s —”_

_“Galra.”_

He reached the hangar anyhow, ears and back burning from hostile words and eyes. He stood tall, and tried to find pride in wearing his new uniform, red shoulders on Garrison white, the Voltron symbol at his belt, the stripes he’d earned as Commander of Voltron, but he felt nothing but the boy in the too-large orange cadet jacket, too small, too angry, too _different_ for anyone to care about.

Even Hunk’s sunny smile and greeting couldn’t chase that ghostly boy away. But he adored Hunk, so he put on a smile, and listened as attentively as he could. For all the care Hunk had given him, Keith owed him that much.

But out the corner of his eye was the MFE fighter squad, all four of them enjoying downtime together. Including James. The knife of James’s smirk twisted where he’d left it from their previous encounter.

Keith breathed. He was a Paladin of Voltron. A Blade of Marmora. He’d survived odds most could only hope to not have nightmares about. He’d fought his best friend on a crumbling base millions of light years away thinking the whole time that he was going to die, because he could never kill Shiro. Surely, he could get through something this juvenile, this meaningless.

Breathing was getting harder. He tried to keep up with Hunk’s enthusiasm but all he wanted to do was hide, run, disappear. There was a quiet roaring in his ears now, and he swallowed, swallowed, swallowed, but his throat stayed dry.

A voice cut through the noise in his head, but not Hunk’s. It was high, furious, and accompanied rapid, running footsteps.

“ _YOU!_ ”

It must have looked comical from a distance: a dozen heads turned around to face the source, and by now most recognized the blonde Altean who normally stood by quietly, accompanying either Coran or Allura. What was less recognizable was the speed in which she was tearing through the hangar, an arrow heading for the bulls-eye that was —

James had no idea what hit him when Romelle’s fist met with his jaw, flattening him to the tarmac. Her strike was so quick that Rizavi, Leifsdottir, and Kinkade could only jump back and away in shock.

More footsteps rushed in: Paladins or not, Lance and Pidge couldn’t hope to keep up with an Altean with a purpose. “ _Romelle!_ ”

Rizavi was the first to recover, rounding on Romelle. “What the actual _fuck_ was that —”

“ _You’re_ the one spreading those rumours!” Romelle yelled, as if no one had spoken, her focus solely on James, who was still flat on his ass, rubbing his jaw.

Keith’s heart froze.

There were voices, demanding to know what she was talking about. Lance held Romelle back, certain that she wasn’t done with James. It didn’t matter that Alteans were inhumanly strong: Lance was going to try. Yet in the face of all her fury, James stood, that same cruel smile back on his face decorated with blood from a split lip. “They’re not rumours if they’re true.”

Romelle lunged; Lance dug his heels in. “How _dare_ you! Keith is the leader of Voltron! Without him you wouldn’t have an Earth to stand on!”

“Well you don’t have an Altea to stand on,” James said, braver somehow. “Whose fault is that? Oh, that’s right. The Galra.”

Breathing. Breathing was supposed to be easy. Breathing was _human_. Why couldn’t he breathe? Why was his head hurting? Hadn’t he been cleared of his concussion?

“He saved my life! And the lives of untold millions, on worlds you don’t even know exist!” Romelle roared.

“Oh, we know all about that. Only fair we also know _what_ he really is.”

Where he got the strength, no one could say, but Lance yanked Romelle away, behind him, and stepped forward. “Hey! That’s my commanding officer you’re talking about!”

Keith felt something strangle him when he heard James’s bark of derisive laughter. He couldn’t remember how long it was since he took a breath. He couldn’t feel his heart but the phantom band around his head was getting tighter and tighter — A _pop_ , ozone in the air.

“Oh, please, McClain. Commanding officer? You wanted to see him fail as badly as the rest of us! But I’m sure your _commanding officer_ doesn’t know how you celebrated when he got kicked out, right?”

Lance gaped, losing half his fight. It felt like an eternity but there was no retort.

 _Of course_ , Keith thought, choking around the invisible. _Of course._

_“You’re a **sham** , Kogane.”*_

More raised voices, more footsteps. Another faraway _pop_ , and for the first time since waking Keith felt the Black Lion’s presence within him, saying, _he’s here, he’s here, it’s okay._

Shiro. Shiro, who gave up his new Altean arm. Did he have something to do with it? _Of course._ Wasn’t he always taking things away from Shiro?

_“ — he’s not even a Paladin anymore. Wasn’t enough for you to take his records, had to take his Lion, too.”*_

Black was there again, telling him that none of that was true. But did it matter? Did _he_ matter, really?

He reached out, blind, finding Hunk’s shoulder, who was so distracted by the drama it seemed like the Yellow Paladin had forgotten he was there. But Hunk turned to him, eyes wide. “Keith?”

His eyes were open, but all he could see was darkness, and before he felt himself disconnect from everything, he said:

“… _help me._ ”

Shiro, along with Iverson and Sam, found themselves gone from the bridge, where they were clustered around Sam’s most recent findings, and deposited on the tarmac in the MFE hangar, right in the middle of a near knock-down drag-out between the MFE pilots, two Paladins, and one Romelle. Their appearance went unnoticed until Iverson barked a sharp, “What in blue blazes is going on here!”

Suddenly there was silence, as one would expect in the face of Iverson, and in that silence was Hunk: “Keith!”

Keith was on the ground, Hunk chasing after him to his knees. Lance immediately abandoned Romelle, and Pidge was about to join him when Hunk called out again — “Pidge, get a medic team! Find Allura if you can!” — and she spun on her heel, racing towards Kosmo instead, and with her hands tight in his fur the pair vanished.

Vaguely, Shiro was aware of Iverson and Sam corralling the MFE squad — they were under their jurisdiction, after all — but all he could see, all he could focus on was Lance tearing Keith’s uniform jacket open, exposing the Paladin under armour, and initiating CPR. Keith’s eyes were half open, and he wasn’t breathing. The fingers on the hand that he could see were twitching in tight spasms, like he was fighting his own body.

No. No, _why?_ Why was this happening? They told him he’d recovered. They _told_ him.

The medic team arrived, and Shiro still couldn’t move. He didn’t think he’d have to see Keith’s sightless eyes again. Never again. He still woke screaming at the memory-nightmare of finding Keith dead.

Keith didn’t know he’d died.

A high-pitched whine cut through the air — “Clear!”

There was a new crystal in his arm: he’d saved the empty husk, begged Allura to forgive him, but between her alchemy and the new nearby Balmera, they were able to restore the crystal into something more powerful and more stable.

Shiro was ready to rip that one out, too. He would do it again, if only he could just _move_.

Two more whines, two more calls, and Keith’s chest expanded, his fingers stilled, eyes slipping blissfully shut. “We’ve got him.”

Even as the team loaded Keith onto the stretcher, ventilated him; even as Lance ran alongside them, unwilling to leave him, wanting nothing more than to be Keith’s right hand and Romelle followed, Shiro remained rooted to the spot. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and in that time Keith had left, come back again, and he didn’t know _why_.

“Shiro.”

He blinked, time moving again, and Hunk was in front of him, something fierce and firm in his expression. “I need to talk to you.” The Yellow Paladin spared a brief glance at the MFE squad, still trapped under Sam and Iverson’s authority, then looked away again, as if they weren’t worth his attention. “Please.”

Shiro could only nod, and something clutched at his heart when he realized Hunk was leading him in a different direction. Away from Keith.

_“I love you. I love you, Keith. Come back. Let me tell you. Let me tell you that I love you.”*_

He still hadn’t told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lines marked with an '*' are taken, with permission, from [FroldGapp's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp) [Crashing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664179/chapters/36386970#workskin).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting away from me. Note the change in chapter count. Honestly it's a blessing, because this fic is letting me do all the post-S7 things I've wanted to do but couldn't get a move on. 
> 
> Eight days to go.

“You are no longer a cadet. You should know by now that this behaviour is unacceptable, especially now that we’re in the middle of a goddamn intergalactic war.”

It didn’t matter that upon their return, Keith and Iverson had mended their fences: Keith acknowledging and cautiously repentant, and Iverson finding a new respect for the boy — man — he’d expelled. At that moment, all Shiro wanted to know was where Iverson’s duty of care had been back when Keith was a cadet, bullied and attacked from every angle without reason, intergalactic war notwithstanding.

Sam hummed from his place at the table. “I need you to understand, James, that gossip is one thing. Gossip exists. But that information regarding Commander Kogane’s biology, the information regarding his _mother_ , was classified. Were you aware of that?”

Shiro had been around the block enough to know when someone looked like they were about to shit themselves, no matter how cool or cavalier they seemed. That was the expression James wore, and it made red creep into the edges of his vision. “Sir, no sir,” Jame replied, crisp but careful. “I just heard the rumours, sir.”

“So you say,” Sam said. “Although Romelle believes _you_ are the source of those rumours.”

“Sir. She, ah, punched me, sir.”

“A punched songbird still sang the first note,” Iverson drawled, a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Sir, I —”

“Additionally, antagonizing a fellow officer in these times is poor conduct,” Iverson continued. “I understand that you and Kogane didn’t always get along, but it’s been years, Griffin. As I said, you are no longer a cadet.”

Now James’s eyes went wide, and Shiro spotted the shift in his arms that evidenced a tightened fist. “Sir! I did not antagonize Officer —”

“ _Commander_ ,” Hunk corrected, the first time he’d spoken since the meeting began. Shiro could see he was relishing the payback from their first team meeting after returning to a war-torn Earth. That was Hunk: do no harm, but take no shit.

“— Commander Kogane, sir.” James practically spat the rank out.

It dawned on Shiro then, why Keith never fought to defend himself whenever he got caught up in — rarely into, not of his own volition — trouble: Keith was a poor liar. He was too sincere for his own good, and he knew it, so he never bothered. A lie here and there might have saved him from so much, but he could never do it. When he did, Shiro let him, as if they had an unspoken agreement that they both knew and understood the lie.

James, on the other hand, probably got as far as he had on the back of one or two good lies told well. Shiro wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Nice try, Griffin.”

He slid a small data stick across the table, watched it come to a satisfying stop against Iverson’s data pad with a soft clatter. Iverson picked it up, ignoring the way James’s jaw threatened to drop.

“Courtesy of one Pidge Gunderson,” Shiro elaborated. It didn’t matter that everyone in that room knew exactly who Pidge Gunderson was. What mattered was that while Katie Holt may be Sam’s daughter, _Pidge_ was a Paladin of Voltron. He was going to make it exceptionally clear who James was dealing with.

Iverson locked the data stick to his pad, and neither Shiro nor Hunk were entirely prepared for what they would hear. Hunk had been there for Keith after the fact, but Shiro hadn’t even known it happened until Hunk told him in a private room off the hangar.

_“I don’t know what he said to him, Shiro, but he was upset, okay? Like I’ve never seen him. He was **crying**. Said he’d fucked up, that something from his past is always waiting. I mean, I know he didn’t have the best time here, and I guess maybe I could’ve helped more? But… was it really that bad, Shiro?”_

Shiro couldn’t bear to tell him how bad it really had been. But Hunk was about to find out.

_“ — Believe me, if it wasn’t for Shiro and Sam Holt, I’d be in that Black Lion like **this**.”*_

He’d lived — if one could call it living — within the Black Lion for nearly a year and a half. There had been times he didn’t know where he ended and she began, and their bond had always been strongest when it came to Keith. When it came to Keith, they were as close to one as possible.

Hearing those words, Shiro felt hackles he didn’t have rise, a fire in his chest that roared and rumbled. He held fast: he was still a Captain.

_“Just because your dad screwed some alien chick and made you a hot shot mystic knight or whatever. That’s right: I saw the Galra specs.”*_

All the fight left James immediately. There it was. Proof that he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, and then let the rest of the Garrison know about it. Shiro had to give him credit: a lesser man would have crumbled, but he sat still, back straight, only the droop of his shoulders and chin betraying his defeat.

But it didn’t feel like enough. As the recording ended, Shiro felt the armrest of his chair give way with a screech of metal underneath his Altean arm. Captaincy be damned, he was going to hurl himself across the table at James and make him wish Romelle had finished him off. But Hunk clamped a large, gentle hand on his left wrist, and he stayed. He felt it in Hunk’s grasp, that he needed to stay for Keith.

Iverson removed the data stick and sat impassive, unimpressed. Sam had his fingers steepled together, and it was only because Shiro knew him so well, because Shiro regarded Sam as the closest thing he’d ever had to a father, that he knew exactly how angry he was, and just how deadly his calm, cold voice was when he next spoke.

“Captain Shirogane. While you are formally the Captain of the Atlas, you still serve as the Black Paladin, as deemed by not only Princess Allura, but by the rest of the Voltron team as well as the Black Lion herself. As this is a transgression against the Red Paladin, the Commander of Voltron, I feel it may fall to you to decide on our next course of action.”

 _For Keith_.

Shiro took a breath. “The MFE squad fall under your and Commander Iverson’s jurisdiction. As the Black Paladin, I am best served to support my team, and support Commander Kogane.” He levelled James with a withering look, pointedly glancing at the ruined armrest and back again. “After all, it would be unseemly for me to be accused of any kind of… _favouritism_.”

He didn’t like being a hero. He never enjoyed being the Garrison’s golden boy. But right now, being a hero who was deeply disappointed in someone who’d looked up to him was as good as he could get.

“Are you sure?”

“I trust you both as part of my bridge crew, with my life. I’m certain you’ll come to a fair decision, and one that will not compromise our efforts in this war.”

Sam and Iverson shared a look, nodded. “Very well.”

All but James stood, salutes were thrown, and Shiro marched out the door; there was no question as to where he was heading. Hunk made to follow, but then stopped.

“You know,” and he knew, he should ask for permission to speak, because that was how it worked in the Garrison. That was how James Griffin worked. But he was a Paladin of Voltron, and he didn’t answer to the Garrison. “Keith is one of the bravest, smartest, kindest people I’ve ever met. He doesn’t have to be, you know. He’s had so much shit happen to him that he should be _un_ kind. He should be bitter. But he’s not. Even right now, whatever the decision, Keith wouldn’t celebrate. He wouldn’t be happy. He’d _feel bad for you_.”

He gave James one last look. “ _That’s_ why the Black Lion chose him.”

He didn’t bother to stay, to see James’s expression. He had a friend to see.

“Where’s Romelle?”

Lance looked up at Shiro, and the expression he wore was not one that would have once graced the Blue Paladin’s face if it involved the Red. “Oh, hey, Shiro. She’s with Keith. Couldn’t pry her away from him. Kosmo’s there, too.”

“Ah, well, seems she and Number Four — ah, I mean, Number Three — grew close during their journey out of the quantum abyss,” Coran explained. “She did lose her brother, after all. Looks like she’s adopted him.”

They were all gathered in Atlas’s version of their old rec room back on the Castle of Lions: same layout with the sunken semi-circle of sofas, but equipped with all the human touches that were missing before. Coffee machine, sound system, gaming consoles, big screen TV, a storage chest full of pillows and blankets. Atlas seemed to pick up on the team’s needs and memories — she liked them very much, simply because Shiro loved them and she would do anything for Shiro — and created the space for them, but even she, in her infant sentience, could sense the absence in the room, the one thing she couldn’t fix.

Shiro sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. “That’s good. Someone should stay with him.”

“Well, we know Keith will be well-protected,” Pidge said, a sad smile on her face. “Romelle will deck anyone who’s not medical staff, no problem.”

“What’s gonna happen to James?” Lance asked. “Did he really out Keith?”

“If I’m honest, I don’t care what happens to him,” Shiro said, sinking heavily into the sofa next to Pidge, who immediately cuddled up to him. “And yes, he really did out Keith.”

“Fuck,” was all Lance could say to that. Then, “Well, screw him. He’s messed with the wrong family.”

The doors hissed open, and Allura stepped in with Ryner trailing behind her. The Olkari leader had come with a team of experts to help with the relief effort on Earth, focusing on healing technology that was sorely needed. It looked like whatever their efforts, there wasn’t good news for Keith.

Pidge sat up immediately, nearly falling over from disentangling herself from Shiro. “So? Is he gonna be okay?”

Allura dropped down next to Lance, and Shiro realized for the first time the Blue Paladin’s hands were shaking. Those were the hands that kept Keith alive until help came. “We weren’t sure at first, but thanks to a breakthrough we had regarding the Komar, we may have some answers.”

“And?”

“Let me explain,” Ryner spoke. “All living things have a natural barrier, that regulates the exchange of quintessence and keeps levels of quintessence in balance.”

“So like osmosis?” Pidge asked.

“That’s right. The Komar harvests quintessence by first breaking down these barriers. Once these barriers are broken, there is nothing to stop the loss of quintessence. Your armour and the Lions provide enough external protection that even when you were all struck by the Komar, you were drained, but alive. In fact the Lions help accelerate the process of returning you to a balanced state. It is how they protect their Paladins.”

Lance frowned. “Okay, but what does this have to do with Keith?”

“We reviewed footage of the fight with the Komar Robeast,” Allura said, something bright and angry in her eyes, “And we saw that it consistently aimed its blade at the body or head of Voltron. The Black Lion. If the Black Lion is weakened, Voltron would fall apart.”

“The Red Paladin’s natural barriers were all but decimated,” Ryner continued sadly. “And his hybrid biology makes him much more sensitive to quintessence. So even though he recovered as well as the rest of you physically, his barriers haven’t caught up. Between that and the stressful situation he was in, his body couldn’t cope, and tried to shut down.”

Hunk spoke at last, from his perch behind the sofas. “You mean, it’s like he’s immunocompromised? Without this barrier, just about anything will overwhelm him? Or try to kill him?”

“Until his barrier rebuilds itself, yes,” Ryner replied, but she straightened herself. “But that will happen, with time. As long as some of it remains, it will rebuild itself. This is only temporary.”

There was a collective sigh of relief, but Shiro wasn’t ready to be content. “You mentioned something about stress?”

“Ah, yes,” Allura said, pulling up her data pad. “We looked into his physiology, compared it to Krolia’s. And, well… I’m not sure how to explain.”

Pidge gestured for the data pad, and Allura relinquished it. The room held its breath until Pidge spoke. “Oh. It looks like… Keith is Galra software, but his hardware is human —”

“So?” Lance countered, impatient. “That’s why he’s the way he is, right? He heals a little quicker, he’s faster, sometimes he’s even stronger. And man, he doesn’t seem to get tired, like, ever.”

“That’s… that’s the problem,” Pidge said. And everyone could hear the waver in her voice, making them all sit up. “Imagine a turbocharged engine, in a chassis that can only take that kind of power for so long. Yeah, it’ll run, it’ll run like anything, but eventually the chassis will fail. It’ll burn out.” She removed her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Galra have an accelerated adrenaline system, their heart rates kick up from resting to maximum in something like seconds, and they can hold that rate for however long they need to. Keith can do that — I mean, I guess that’s why he takes so long to come down from a fight? — but he has a _human_ heart. If he keeps going the way he does, if he draws it out for as long as he did when we fought Lotor —”

 _And me_ , Shiro thought. _Me. Oh gods what have I done_.

“— Guys?” Pidge’s voice cracked on the name. “Keith… Keith’s gonna die.”

Shiro felt his soul carve in two, a gaping chasm opening within him. That wasn’t possible. He couldn’t. _Keith_ couldn’t.

The oppressive silence in the rec room — their family room, their _family_ room that was currently lacking Keith — snapped when Hunk stood, and once again Shiro saw that ferocity from before.

“Okay, no, this is bullshit!” He stared to pace around the sofas, simmering. “ _Bullshit!_ ”

“Hunk —”

“No, Lance! Hell no! We’ve… how long have we known that Keith was Galra, huh? _How long?_ How are we only _just_ learning all this about him? It’s not like maybe we didn’t suspect that there was something screwy about how sensitive he is to quintessence. He tracked _two_ Lions without knowing how to find them! He tracked energies that I had to _build sensors for!_ His bayard is like, linked to his _soul_ or something, I don’t even know! And when have we ever asked if he was okay after a fight? When have we ever asked him if he was tired? If he needed a break? Huh?”

Coran sighed, tapping his chin in thought. “If only we still had the Castle. We’d be able to get a full diagnostic and —”

“And whose fault is that?!” Hunk roared, his eyes immediately going to Allura. Allura, shocked by the turn in Hunk’s demeanour, straightened up in her seat, eyes wide and mouth trying to form words and failing. “Whose fault do you think it is that Keith never came forward to check on his own well-being?!”

Both Lance and Shiro stood, Lance taking position in front of Allura. “Hey, come on! That’s not fair!”

But Hunk ignored him, ignored Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. “ _Fuck_ fair, Lance! Do you think Keith asked to be Galra? Do you think he meant to find out the way he did? Think about it. Don’t you think he was, I don’t know, _scared?_ But we didn’t do anything to help him! Not one of us. _Allura_ acted like he didn’t even exist! We just all passed the buck to Shiro, like Keith’s a feral animal and Shiro’s his handler!

“And when Shiro was gone? When his heart was fucking _breaking?_ When he went out there alone for _months_ just looking? Did we — God, and when he was going on missions with the Blade, we don’t even know what they had him doing! We don’t know what he was running on, how long he was running for! And we just — we let him —” Silent tears were running freely down Hunk’s cheeks now, Pidge’s quiet sobbing their only accompaniment. Hunk ran a rough hand across his face, and then with a broken shout: “ _He doesn’t even think we’re friends!_ ”

Shiro’s hand left Hunk’s shoulder. “What?”

Now Lance looked nervous, looking around the room, from Hunk to Pidge to Allura. “Hunk, we said a lot of things out there —”

“You told him to leave! Because that was what he always did!”

“— things we didn’t mean! We were —” Lance ran a hand through his hair, tugging it in places, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “We were exhausted and hungry and _lost!_ We were going crazy out there!”

Even through their raised voices, Shiro’s low, confused question made itself heard. “What are you talking about?”

He almost wished he hadn’t asked, when Hunk turned to face him. He was met with a tight, bitter smile that matched his voice. “He never told you, did he? Nah. Figured. He apologized, you know. I know he wasn’t proud of what he said. Bet he still thought of how you’d react, if you’d heard the things he said. Of course he wouldn’t tell you. But yeah. He thought we weren’t friends, Shiro. At all. That Voltron is just a big messed-up coincidence none of us wanted. Now he’s dying, and I’m gonna go to my grave wishing I’d been a better friend to him.”

The room went quiet again. Ryner stood silent, Coran had gone to sit beside Pidge, holding her tight, doing his best to comfort her. Allura wept into her hands, Lance torn between consoling her or his best friend. Eventually, Shiro watched as all the anger left the Yellow Paladin, and Hunk deflated with a mighty sigh, before declaring that he was going to check on Romelle.

Shiro, too, excused himself, and left the room.

He tried to cry. He really did. None of this was fair, and he had to feel something. Anything. But his heart was like a Christmas ornament, fragile and beautiful and smashed to pieces on the floor revealing the hollow nothing inside it.

He thought of Adam’s name on that wall, fallen at the first wave of Sendak’s attack. Keith had killed him, killed the one responsible for Adam’s death, the one who haunted and hunted Shiro like a wolf prowling in the corners of his personal night. He thought of Keith, bright and beautiful (so beautiful) and fierce as a thousand suns, of how he always felt that Keith was like any one of those distant stars flying across the universe, joyous and free, and that it was luck Shiro didn’t deserve that he had fallen into his life.

Keith didn’t deserve this.

Taking a deep breath, willing himself just one more time to cry, to scream, _anything_. When nothing happened, he picked up his data pad and patched through to Krolia and Kolivan.

He had to tell them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, lines marked with an '*' are taken, with permission, from [FroldGapp's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp) [Crashing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664179/chapters/36386970#workskin).
> 
> And James fans, I'm sorry, but also, I'm not? Eheh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. Everything hurts right now, one way or another.
> 
> This is why we write.
> 
> And yes, the chapter count went up again. Because I guess I need this. Maybe you do, too.

He’d been here before. Sitting in almost this exact chair, next to nearly this exact bed. Just the room was different. A non-standard hospital room, larger and better-appointed, with a fold-out sofa that was comfortable enough. On the windowsill was a collection of little individually-potted succulents that Romelle had found in the new markets set up in the area, and on the bedside table stood a tall blue vase filled with sunflowers that Hunk had brought in.

Shiro thought he was the only one who knew of Keith’s love of succulents and sunflowers.

_“They’re big and happy. It’s like nothing can make them sad. That’s kinda nice to know.”_

He was glad there were others who knew that about Keith. It felt important. He’d brought a small stack of books, for when Keith woke up. Reading was the only way Keith would be content to sit still.

How was it worse, when he looked like he was just sleeping? The last time Shiro had been in this position, Keith was bandaged, bruised, broken. Comatose. He’d found Keith dead in the Black Lion and his world had ended and he sacrificed the last piece of someone else’s world to bring him back. There were no bandages this time, no bruises or breaks. The only things that told anyone that anything was wrong were the IV in his arm and the nasal cannula providing supplementary oxygen. Shiro glanced at the monitors, used to the unusual numbers now: a higher body temperature, a lower resting heart rate than a standard human.

Hunk was right. They should have known.

“Sh’ro?”

His heart came to a screeching halt as he snapped his gaze back to the man in the bed.

Awake. Smiling. Eyes still heavy with sleep, but bright and alive.

“Hey,” he replied, barely keeping the tremor out of his voice. He took Keith’s hand in his own, squeezing gently. “Hey. I’m here. I’m right here.”

Keith shifted his head, the tiniest nod, and that smile that said, _I know_. “Everyone okay?”

Shiro couldn’t help a chuckle. Typical Keith. “Yes, Keith. Everyone else is fine.”

“You?”

“Me, not so much.” He couldn’t lie. He was never good at lying to Keith.

“Because of me?”

Another squeeze of his hand. “Always.”

Keith’s face did something Shiro had never seen before. Not once, ever. The furrowed brow, the small frown were familiar, but then his eyes were wide and young and _frightened_. Keith was never scared of anything, and even if he was, he was good at never showing it. “Am… am _I_ okay?”

“No,” Shiro answered, switching hands so he held Keith’s hand in his prosthetic while his flesh hand carded through his hair, a gesture of comfort he’d learned so long ago. “You’re not. It’s… difficult to explain, and you should rest more for now. We’ll talk together once Krolia gets here, okay?”

“Mom’s coming?”

“And Kolivan. They’ll be here in a couple of days.”

“Oh.” And Shiro knew that look, that look of doubt Keith always wore when he felt like he was a burden, nothing but trouble that others always had to give up whatever they were doing so they could get to him. Shiro supposed there were things one could never grow out of, and he was going to nip this in the bud.

“Hey, no. None of that,” he said, hand moving from Keith’s hair to cup the side of his face, keeping him from looking away. “She’s your mother, Keith. She wants to be here. Just like I do. Right now there is nothing more important to either of us than you, understand?”

Teeth worried his lower lip, but after a glance away, Keith nodded against his hand, and that had to be good enough for now. Slowly, Keith turned his head, to look over to the other side of the bed. It was easier this time, because he wasn’t in pain, just tired, and the breathing tubes moved with him. “Where’s ‘Melle?” he asked, such an oddly plaintive thing that Shiro bit back a smile.

“I sent her off with Kosmo to get some rest. She hasn’t left your side. She’ll probably be back later.” Keith only hummed in reply, and Shiro couldn’t help himself. “How did you know she was here?”

Keith looked past Shiro, to the windowsill, and the line of tiny pots of succulents. “She thinks they’re cute. Keeps collecting them. Gives them names.”

Shiro peered back over his shoulder to look at them, too. “Do you think those have names?”

“Hunk gave her a label-maker. If they’ve got labels, they’ve got names.”

“That _is_ kinda cute.”

Keith huffed a short laugh, a smile betraying his features. “Drives me crazy.” He settled back down, burrowing into the blankets. Shiro could see his eyelids growing heavier, which was just as well, because Shiro wasn’t ready yet. He needed to tell Keith, but not now. Not now, not now.

“S’nice though,” Keith murmured, pulling Shiro back to the room.

“Mm? What is?”

Half a shrug and a yawn. “Having a sister,” and Shiro had to hold his breath so that just in case his heart did explode, it wouldn’t make a mess. “Never had one. Dunno what to do with one.”

“You’re smart,” Shiro replied, face hurting from the size of his smile. “You’ll figure it out.”

Keith’s eyes weren’t open anymore, but he managed a, “Stay?” before he drifted off altogether, before Shiro could even answer.

But he knew Keith didn’t need an answer. Enough had passed between them that there was no doubt that he would stay, right here, right beside him, for as long as he could. Because for all he knew, for all this cursed universe had done to them, there may not be much more time.

Allura lingered outside the room as Shiro patiently explained the situation to both Keith and Krolia. She’d been as surprised as Shiro, when as soon as Krolia walked through the door, Keith had sat up and reached for her, calling her, “Momma,” which no one had ever heard before. Mother and son held each other for long moments, Krolia nosing at Keith’s hair and temple, rubbing her cheek against his.

The Princess had forgotten, in her hatred for the Galra, that they were a tactile race, a people steeped in action over words. It suddenly dawned on her that maybe they hadn’t given Keith enough by way of touch. Suddenly every time Shiro had a hand on his shoulder, an arm across his back, a ruffle through his hair made sense. Shiro may not have understood Galra, but he understood _Keith_ , and that was all that was needed. It made her feel inadequate in the worst way.

Shiro stopped talking with a long sigh, then asked if Keith or Krolia had any questions. Keith, quiet and thoughtful, shook his head, and turned to bury his face against his mother’s shoulder. Krolia, too, shook her head, silent tears running down her face. As he rose, Shiro took Krolia’s hand and Keith’s in each of his — the flesh one always for Keith — and gave them a squeeze, before excusing himself.

Allura didn’t speak until the door had shut firmly behind them. “Are they all right?”

“No, Allura. Of course they’re not all right,” he said, and she could feel the way bitterness banged against his clenched teeth, held back. “I just told a mother her son could die. I just told my _best friend_ that he could die. That if he goes out to fight, and I can’t stop him, it will _kill him_.” He sucked in a hissed breath, ground his eyes shut, held himself for several moments before opening them again and walking past her. “I need to update Kolivan, and then talk to Ryner and Sam.”

He didn’t apologize or excuse himself. Allura did not expect either of him and let him go.

“Okay, okay. Call that one Steven and _that_ one Glenn.”

“Your Earth names are so odd,” Romelle pouted as she input the names and printed the labels. “But your plants are adorable! And these pots!” She stuck each pot with a label, as per Keith’s choices, and then traipsed over to the windowsill to add them to the collection. There were nine of them now, all in different-coloured pots, some stripy, some with polka dots, and Keith wondered if they were sold like that or if Romelle had painted them; he wouldn’t put it past her.

He smiled as she arranged them in an order only known to herself. “You should talk to Colleen. Pidge’s mom? She’s a botanist. She loves plants. I bet you could get her to teach you all their names, as in, their plant names. Maybe even how to grow them.”

“Oh, do you think she would?” and Keith was sure he wasn’t imagining the stars in her eyes. “I did enjoy working in the gardens back at the colony, and I spent a lot of time in the forests…. Do you really think she’d teach me?”

“Sure. She’s just like Pidge and Sam, loves sharing anything and everything she —” A cough cut him off, the inhale choking him, and suddenly monitors were blaring and flashing red and he was gasping for air and the coughs kept coming and coming…

Next he was aware, the room was dark, with only the light of the bedside lamp illuminating the room. He could breathe, he could hear voices. He wondered why his nose wasn’t itching, because the cannula wasn’t always comfortable, until he realized he had a full breathing mask on, and the whooshing sound wasn’t in his head. It made it easier for him to isolate, so he could hear the voices better. One he didn’t recognize, one he did.

“— should make a swift recovery. We caught it just in time, with minor surgical intervention. With his healing factor it’s unlikely this will happen again.”

“Should it have happened at all? For gods’ sake he’s _twenty-two!_ Congestive heart failure in someone —”

“Shiro, _please_.”

A third. _Momma_.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Krolia. None… none of this is normal. If, if you say he’ll recover from this, then that’s what we’ll hope for.”

In the quiet, Keith thought about everything Shiro had told him, about what happened, about his condition, about what it all meant. He thought about his quintessence, how it worked, how it didn’t. He thought about Coran’s story about Zarkon and Honerva, how quintessence corrupted them both, all because one wanted to save the other.

He thought, he ought to talk with them. With all of them. Because he won’t let it come to that. He was going to live, and he was going to fight. He would see the end of this war.

And after?

He won’t think about after.

It took Lance a couple more days before he could bring himself to visit. He could still see the emptiness in Keith’s eyes from that day, and he couldn’t bear to see Keith when he still needed the full breathing apparatus. As promised, he’d recovered well from his minor heart surgery and no longer needed any assistance with breathing, but he was still bed-bound, still too weak to be back on duty.

And he was apparently running out of books to read. Hence Lance’s surprise errand from a panicked Shiro and his visit. Or maybe Shiro planned it all along. He was sneaky like that.

It didn’t matter in the end, not with the way Keith’s eyes lit up at the stack in his arms. “Oh. Is that the _Broken Earth_ trilogy?”

“Hello to you, too, Mullet,” Lance snarked, but he smiled anyway. Keith seemed almost like himself again, only a little paler. “And yes, yes it is. Courtesy of the esteemed Captain Shirogane himself. I don’t know what kinda strings he pulled but I guess that’s captaincy for you.” He wanted to tease a little more, maybe play a little keepaway, but Keith made such cute grabby-hands for the books he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He set them in Keith’s lap, then took a seat next to the bed, watching Keith check the back covers and first few pages for maps.

“Wow,” he murmured, a little breathless. “Tell Shiro thank you. I know he’s been busy. And thank you for bringing them.”

“Hey, no problem. I just had no idea you read so much.” Lance helped him move the stack of books onto the bedside table within easy reach by the flower vase, currently filled with sunny yellow tulips. “I mean, usually when you’re not fighting you’re training, so.”

Keith shrugged in that helpless, tired way that was slowly becoming normal now, and none of the others liked that it was. “Ehn. Reading doesn’t really help with the post-battle adrenaline… issue. And right now, I can’t train or fight.” Lance wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it for himself, but he saw a flash of doubt cross Keith’s face, and that was frankly alarming. “I’ll work it out. I have to.”

“Uh-uh, no. You mean, _we’ll_ work it out. All of us.”

“Lance,” Keith was shaking his head now, something sad and defeated in the fall of his shoulders that just wasn’t _right_. “I can’t let this… whatever this is, get in the way of our mission. You know that. I have a job to do.”

Lance stood up so quickly the chair fell backwards away from him, and Keith nearly jumped at the noise. “Yeah, well I have a job, too! And that’s to have your back!” He caught himself, unclenching his fists; he hadn’t meant to snap. But Keith hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, either. That was the worst thing: they were dealt a shitty hand and had nowhere to pin the blame. “Look. Keith… When, you know when you had Red, and Shiro had Black? You always, always had his back. Sometimes it was almost uncanny, the way you always seemed to know when he needed you. You looked out for him, so he could look out for _us_. You had his back so he could focus on leading the best he knew how. You were the best right hand for him. You still are.

“But now I’m your right hand. Now it’s _my_ job to look out for _you_ , to take care of _you_ , so you can lead _us_. Not just out there, but here, too.” He stepped forward, and this wasn’t them, not really, but he laid one hand over Keith’s, and the other on his shoulder. “So please. _Please_ , let me do my job. Okay?”

Keith blinked at him, head tilted to one side like a dumb lost puppy, and gods it was so endearing that it hit Lance hard how close they’d been to losing him, and he crumbled, slowly, until his forehead rested against Keith’s shoulder. “Please?”

“Okay,” came the answer, whispered like a breeze, before arms wrapped around him, and Lance wondered why he never hugged Keith more, because he gave quite lovely hugs. “Okay, Lance.”

“Good.” And if he was making Keith’s shirt a little damp, no one said anything and no one else needed to know.

“I never did thank you for the other day. You saved my life.”

“Yeah, well. That’s my job. But Keith? I’ll do anything. Honest. But please don’t make me do that again.”

Lance knew neither of them could promise that, but Keith was Keith: Keith was kind, and he said, “Okay.”

Pidge came by practically every day. Always with her laptop, which was sometimes hooked up to a data pad or three, trailing multiple sensors that got stuck to different parts of his body every time. Keith had no idea what she was doing, what she was looking for, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d understand, so he let her do her thing. That was her morning routine: coffee, “Morning, Keith,” laptop, whatever it was she did, and then she wouldn’t be seen again until after dinner.

Which was when he got a different person. He figured that in the morning, he got Pidge. But after dinner, the one snuggled up in bed with him with the exact same laptop watching nature documentaries was Katie.

They don’t talk about the morning in the evening. Keith tried it once, and he never wanted to make her cry again.

“Katie?”

“Yeah, Keith?”

“What’s it like, having an older sibling?”

Pidge snickered, stealing a gummi bear from the bowl in Keith’s lap. “Romelle driving you crazy?”

“No, not exactly,” he said, heaving a deep sigh. “I just… I don’t really know what to do.”

She tapped a key on the laptop, pausing their current show so she could give him her full attention. “How do you mean?”

Keith gnawed on his lower lip, worked his thumb over his closed fist, a nervous gesture he never fully outgrew. “She’s always with me, even when I don’t need her, and she’s… she tries so hard to make things okay, I guess? But I know I make her sad, I’ve made her cry without even doing anything, and she still comes in and tells me stories or makes me laugh or we’d argue about something stupid and she thinks I know the answers to all the questions about Earth and she keeps trying to _braid my hair_ and I—”

Pidge’s laughter drew his word vomit to a halt, leaving him feeling more than a little stupid. “Yeah. You’re fine, Keith,” Pidge said once she got a hold of herself. “You’re doing the sibling thing just fine.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.” She picked up the bowl of sweets and set it on the bedside table so she could curl up against him more, resting her socked feet on his shins. “Matt’s like that. He’ll always cheer me up, does dumb things that I really shouldn’t find funny but make me laugh anyways. He’ll always care too much, even when we fight. But if I get in a tight spot, I know he’ll be there defending my honour. Y’know. Kinda like how Romelle punched out Griffin.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, any of us would have done it, but there’s something more immediate and irrational about sibling rage. You’ve seen me and Matt fight together.”

He had. They were terrifying. He wanted to smile, but the one thought he had — the one he’d carried since they left the quantum abyss — kept him sober. “I don’t… I just don’t want to replace Bandor. I don’t want that for her.”

“Oh Keith,” and he felt her arms tighten around him. “Of course you’re not replacing him. Bandor was her brother. There’s no reason you can’t be, too, you know. She misses being a sister. That’s what she wants, maybe it’s what she _needs_. What’s going on now, yeah, it makes her sad. It makes us all sad. But being your sister makes her happy.”

He hummed, thoughtful. Romelle was different from the other Paladins, different even to Shiro. He liked it, though. He liked his relationship with her, and he knew it amused his mother endlessly. Maybe Shiro was right, and Pidge was right: he’d work it out.

“And really,” she went on, much more softly now, as if they weren’t the only two in the room, “being your sister makes _me_ happy, too. I have Matt, but I like having you as a brother, too. We all do.” She sniffled, barely hiding it, and there, again, Keith despaired at making someone cry without having done anything. “We should have just done it more, and sooner.”

The pair said nothing for a little while, content to huddle under the covers while a gazelle remained frozen in mid-air on screen, just out of a cheetah’s reach.

“Wanna watch the one with all the penguins falling over?”

“… Yeah.”

“Should you really be working right now?”

Keith looked up from his data pad, and if it weren’t so adorable, Hunk might have forgiven him just for the guilty hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression on the Red Paladin’s face and the way he pointed a finger at the man sitting in the chair next to the bed, also with a data pad in hand.

Hunk rolled his eyes with a groan. “Shiro, you’re a bad influence.”

At least Shiro had the grace to look sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah-heh. Sorry?”

“Just for that, no banana cake for you.”

“Awww.”

The Yellow Paladin immediately set down a small layered sponge cake, golden with layers of cream, slices of banana and shavings of chocolate, laid out plates and forks and cut a slice for Keith. “My mom’s recipe,” he declared proudly. “Bananas are good for you. Lots of potassium. Good for the heart.”

Keith gladly accepted his slice, smiling bright as the new batch of sunflowers in his room. “And yet sugar’s okay?”

“Dude. Come _on_. I use only the best honey. No processed shit in my cakes, no sir.” He snapped his fingers, as if just remembering. “Oh, and I used mascarpone for the filling instead of double cream, so it’s not as heavy and sweet and it’s got that little tang that really brings out the chocolate!”

“Mffph-good,” Keith managed around a mouthful of cake. Considering the last week, Hunk thought he never looked more alive than he did with cheeks stuffed full of cake like a hamster.

Shiro laughed, shaking his head at the sight. “You have no idea how long it took me to get Keith to eat bananas as part of his diet. He had such a hard time putting on weight as a cadet.”

“Raw bananas are weird,” Keith interjected, a haughty lift to his chin. “Baked bananas are fine.”

“Keith, there are fresh banana slices in that cake!”

Unwilling to lose the argument, Keith shrugged and simply said, “Hunk is magic.”

It was a good atmosphere, with few reminders of everything that had happened. Keith’s scans had come back with good results of his healing from his emergency heart surgery, and Pidge had hinted at some kind of breakthrough down in her lab; what for, no one was entirely sure yet. Keith was eating and lively, and even Shiro seemed more relaxed, smiling more easily than he had in days.

A ping sounded off, and Keith looked to his data pad on the bedside table, but Hunk stopped him with a yelp. “Nonono! _No!_ You sit there and you eat your cake, young man!” Before Keith could protest, Shiro waved a hand.

“Don’t worry, it’s mine.”

Keith muttered something about being older than Hunk, he didn’t sit on a space whale for two years for nothing, but Hunk was distracted by Shiro, who’d gone still. A few minutes passed and Shiro cleared his throat and came to a stand. “Looks like I have a meeting to get to. I may not see you guys at dinner.”

Oblivious, tucking into his second slice of cake, Keith made a small unhappy noise, but said, “Okay. Don’t work too hard.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow.”

“Okay, Shiro.”

Keith was a poor liar. Everyone knew it. Hunk knew it.

Shiro, as it turned out, wasn’t much better.

That ping was what it took to break him.

That ping that signalled an incoming message. Two minutes to read, two more to process.

And now Shiro was locked in his quarters, with orders that he not be disturbed till morning, screaming wet, tearful howls into a pillow. If he deigned to look up and check the time, he’d know only ten or so minutes had passed since he fell into the bed in the dark, but he felt like he’d been screaming for hours. The most awful, ugly wracking sobs cracked through him, splintering and snapping in every space that was soft with love.

Not when his parents died. Not when his grandfather died. Not when he thought he was going to die in the arena, and not even for Adam, did he cry like this.

> **_Captain Shirogane,_ **
> 
> **_We are pleased to inform you that thanks to the joint efforts of our medical staff and the Coalition experts from Olkarion, we have sufficiently determined beyond doubt that there is no trace of the muscular degeneration that was once present. Further DNA testing shows that no such errors exist, and due to the age of your body, we would expect you to have a long and healthy life past average human expectancy._ **
> 
> **_We wish you the very best._ **

He was going to live. _He was going to live_.

He was going to _live_ , yet Keith could die at any point in this war.

He would live, Keith would die, and none of it was fucking fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets better next chapter, I promise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!
> 
> I'm sorry this took a little while to carry on, but here we go. It's a bit of a filler chapter, but stuff needed to happen and so they happen. 
> 
> Enjoy.

“How about now?”

“Are you purposely playing it wrong?”

“No, no, c’mon. Now?”

Keith huffed, closed his eyes, and listened as Lance strummed the same chords again. “That one. The… second one? Higher.”

“Damn!” Lance cheered, holding the guitar closer to himself now that he wasn’t playing. “Are you sure you never had lessons or anything?”

“For the last time, Lance,” he said, rolling his eyes and falling back against the pillows, “no. I have no idea what… notes? Chords? You were playing. Where — where would I have had the time? Or the money?”

Lance frowned, and maybe Keith had finally convinced him. “It’s just weird. I think you have perfect pitch.”

Keith turned his head so he could see his friend, but made no other move whatsoever. Today he felt thoroughly drained, and he didn’t know why. It was becoming frustrating: he’d be fine one day, thinking for sure he’d be free to leave soon, only to nearly fall over again the next. He hoped Pidge would find a solution soon. She seemed incredibly agitated yesterday, in the good sort of way. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s like, you recognize the notes, and you can recreate them without a reference? That’s how Luis explained it to me, anyway,” Lance said, going back to quietly strumming. “Like you’re a perfect echo.”

He wondered why that notion sounded so familiar, when a knock came at the door and Shiro stepped in with a gentle smile. “Hey. You ready for your meeting with the MFEs?”

Keith let out a long, pained groan, and struggled to sit himself up fully on the bed. “Fuck, is that today? Is that _now?_ ” Shiro’s hands were immediately on him, supporting his back and chest as he shuffled himself backwards to lean against the headboard and pillows. He’d been oddly clingy the last couple of days, and Keith deeply wanted to ask if anything was wrong, but like his time with Pidge, he worried that the wrong question will lead to upset about his condition, and he was tired of being the source of other people’s sadness.

“No, you have maybe ten minutes,” Shiro said, checking his data pad. “Don’t worry, you look fine.”

He highly doubted that. Under the blankets he had loose pyjama bottoms on, and over his t-shirt he wore an oversized sweater. At least his hair was clean and Romelle had thoroughly brushed it earlier that morning. He’d been warned about this meeting, the first since the… incident, and he wasn’t entirely looking forward to it. Which was why Lance insisted on being there as well, while Shiro would keep his distance at the back of the room. A last-ditch effort of pulling his hair into a low ponytail was as good as it got when the knock on the door finally came.

It wasn’t what Keith expected.

Kinkade stepped in, Rizavi at his heels: one quiet, calm, and serious, the other bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in a way that made Keith feel tired all over again. Both pilots threw quick, sharp salutes. “Commander Kogane. Lieutenants Ryan Kinkade and Nadia Rizavi reporting in, sir.” Just as sharply, they dropped their salutes and remained standing where they were.

Keith blinked at them, hesitating. Their uniforms were crisp and clean, hair all tidy, and he looked and felt like a hungover college kid. He was still getting his head around the whole ‘Commander’ thing. “Uh… hi?”

Lance snorted as Shiro leaned over and whispered, “Usually ‘at ease’ works here, Keith.”

“Oh! Sorry! I mean, at ease.” He tried to pretend his cheeks weren’t flaming. He’d never been good with authority, and never dreamt he’d have any himself. This was so far out of his comfort zone. “Please. Uh, sit. Chair, piece of bed. Anywhere’s… fine?” Kinkade came closer but chose to remain standing, while to Keith’s relief, Rizavi hopped up onto the end of the bed and made herself comfortable.

“Thank you, sir —”

“Um, we’re ah… not really in official capacity here, so just Keith is fine?” Gods, he was so bad at this. Griffin was right, he didn’t deserve this, he hadn’t earned any of it.

But Rizavi giggled, and said, “Yeah, Ryan, chill out. You know Keith’s cool.”

Kinkade seemed to hesitate, and maybe Keith wasn’t as bad as he thought, if someone as steady as Kinkade could find Garrison protocol awkward, too. The other man slowly smiled, light coming into his honeyed eyes, and he chuckled, warm and low. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.”

Kinkade was now leading the MFE squadron, with Rizavi as his flight partner. That was the extent of Griffin’s punishment, demoted within his own team, and no longer allowed to access or speak to the Commander of Voltron without authorization. Lance didn’t think it was enough, but Keith reminded him that they were still at war, and they needed all the good pilots they could get. In the end, it was humiliation and a restraining order, and it let it be known that to tangle with one member of Voltron was to have all of them baying for blood.

Even Kinkade wasn’t entirely happy with the situation despite his promotion. “He’s a good man, and a great pilot. But sometimes he’s an idiot, and he should have known better. It reflects badly on the rest of us.”

From his position in the back corner of the room, Shiro observed, quiet, content, and beaming. Yes, Keith was a tired, fragile, rumpled thing on the bed, IV still feeding him what they hoped would help him recover. But he engaged with the two pilots with brightness and intelligence, asked them questions and answered their own queries as a good leader would, once his nervousness was gone. Shiro was glad for Kinkade and Rizavi: they were like mixed up versions of himself and Keith, once upon a time. Kinkade was self-possessed and strong, but of very few words, almost seemingly unfriendly, while Rizavi was upbeat and excitable, with a daredevil streak Shiro found very familiar. By the end of the meeting, the four young pilots were laughing and joking together, two leaders and their right hands.

They would go a long way to mending the relationship between Team Voltron and the MFEs.

Pidge exploded into the rec room, data pad waving madly above her head. “Guys, guys! Look at this!”

It was lucky that they were all there together, including Coran and Romelle, as Krolia and Kosmo were sitting in with Keith. Everyone crowded around the coffee table in the centre of the semi-circle of sofas where Pidge set up her display.

“Look, see, I found a way to measure the strength of our quintessence barriers, and visualize them — colour-coded, because _duh_ — so we can keep track of how we’re all doing. Won’t make much difference while we’re in the Lions, but if we’re out in the field we’ll only have our armour as first defence, so this will help us a lot in environments where the natural quintessence fields are low, unstable, or have a tendency fluctuate.”

Shiro draped an arm across her back, pulling her into a sideways hug. “That’s fantastic, Pidge. Great work.”

“Yeah!” Lance crowed. “This way we can keep Keith safe and if he argues we can lock him down with actual numbers, or whatever. Can’t argue with logic, right?”

“I dunno, man,” Hunk said, half-smiling. “Keith’s won arguments against druids and space-time, and _death_ , kinda. I think we’ll have our work cut out for us if we’re gonna make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Allura hummed, appreciative and questioning. “How are Keith’s barriers doing then?”

At the question, Pidge lit up all the more. “That’s the exciting thing! I set up an observation camera in his room to monitor it, right, and look!”

There was video footage of Keith’s room, not in considerable detail, but what was clear was the thin band of red surrounding Keith’s figure. As the video went on, they saw each of themselves — a blue Lance, a purple Shiro, Pidge herself in green, and a pink Allura accompanied by two other figures — with their barriers thick, strong, and bright.

“Oh,” Allura said, eyes downcast. “Keith’s looks so… weak, compared to all of ours. And it’s been over a week now since we realized.”

“Yeah, but this was yesterday,” Pidge went on, not losing her enthusiasm in the slightest. “Look here.”

The time-stamp showed it was later in the evening, and Hunk’s yellow barrier glowed like the sun. Time wore on, and to their amazement, parts of Keith’s barrier turned yellow, before slowing fading into his own red signature. By the time Hunk left, Keith’s barrier glowed twice as bright as it had earlier.

“That… hey! I slept over last night!” Hunk said, blinking in disbelief. He and Keith had played a couple of video games, and then he figured it wouldn’t be too bad to just stay the night in the chair, pillowing his head on the bed. “But I don’t feel any different!”

“You shouldn’t do. The sleep cycle is when the human body rests and repairs itself, processes information and logs away memories. A whole load of background operations are going on. It makes total sense that the same can be applied to the quintessence barrier.” Pidge swiped the screen to show a line graph alongside the video footage. “Hunk’s barrier is right there, and it looks like Keith’s barrier is treating it as part of the room’s ambient quintessence, and just absorbs it. Like it recognizes it as not only harmless, but ultimately beneficial.”

Romelle looked unhappily at the data pad. “But I’m always with him! How come I can’t help?” She and Coran had been with Allura in the footage, but only Allura showed up in the visualization.

“It must have to do with our bond with the Lions, and with Voltron,” Allura realized, taking Romelle’s hand in her own in comfort. “Our individual quintessences are bound with each Lion, and in turn, to each other whenever we form Voltron. We’ve been doing it for long enough now that it would seem we recognize each other this way. And if Keith’s sensitivity means he’s often drawn to it —”

“He’s using us to help himself heal,” Shiro finished. He didn’t say that it was most likely why, and how, Keith always seemed to know where he was, how he was able to read off Shiro’s moods. That the stronger the relationship, the easier the connection. It was no mystery how he and Keith always worked and fought seamlessly together, as if they were one.

Straightening up, Shiro clenched his Altean hand, and immediately felt power run from it and into his mind, firing in his synapses and lighting up his soul. Atlas answered, eager and waiting.

“Atlas. We need a cuddle room.”

Shiro wasn’t sure how Keith would react to the new addition to the Paladin quarters. He wasn’t sure how Atlas did _anything_ , to be honest, how she just created spaces, shuffling existing ones around. But here, attached to the rec room, was somehow another room, dominated by an enormous bed in the corner, the headboard a beautiful smooth cushioned curve and the bedding so thick and lush it was immediately inviting. Pillows and cushions of all shapes and sizes were piled haphazardly, and just like in the rec room, there was a huge trunk full of blankets. Opposite the bed was a huge wall-mounted screen, and in the corner, a set of bookshelves and a snuggle seat that was the ideal place to curl up with a book.

“This… this isn’t all for me, right?” Keith asked, small and uncertain.

Shiro smiled, and led Keith further into the room, straight into the snuggle seat. He sat down, and coaxed Keith down with him, lifting his long legs to stretch across his lap. They fit perfectly. “Well, this corner is definitely all yours. I know you’re discharged, but you still need to take it easy, and this can be your quiet space if you find the rec room too busy.”

“Can’t I just, y’know, be in my room?”

“I guess, but this way, you’re still close, not completely cut off from the rest of us. It’s better than you squirrelling yourself away in some far corner like you used to on the Castle.” He saw the doubt cross Keith’s face, that unasked question of _have I done something wrong?_ “Hey. Listen. Everyone understands that you like your space, and you like things a little quieter. We just want to keep you close, and allow you your privacy at the same time. Pidge and Hunk have their lab and workshop, and Lance has his little music room. It’s fine, Keith.”

He knew Keith wasn’t entirely convinced, but he didn’t push. He watched as the Red Paladin looked around the room, taking in the softness in all its edges, in the lighting, reading all the titles on the bookshelf with a tiny quirk to his lips. “So, what’s with the monster bed? Pidge said something about my quintessence barrier.”

“She showed you how Hunk’s barrier helped yours, right?” He got a nod, so he went on. “This way, we have an instant sleepover room. It won’t just help you recover now, but it’ll help all of us, especially after a hard battle. We’re all intertwined enough now that being close together actually benefits us, physically and emotionally.”

“We just sleep in a massive puppy pile?” Keith asked, bemused, but judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t entirely against the idea.

Shiro shrugged. “Maybe not all of us all the time. We all run on different schedules these days, but you’ll always have someone with you if you need them. If anything, there’s plenty of room for you and Kosmo,” he said, playfully shoving at Keith’s knees. “Tonight though, we’re gonna have a movie night in here. Just a pile of Paladins and Alteans and an oversized puppy.”

“Who’s picking?”

“Well, you,” Shiro said, smiling. “This is for your recovery, after all.”

Keith’s returning smile nearly stopped his heart. It was one of those rare smiles, the kind Shiro wanted to believe were reserved for him. Keith had a similar one for his mother, another for Kosmo, but this — shy, private, with so much light in those night-sky eyes — Shiro knew was its own thing. All the more endearing as Keith reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear, revealing that patch of pale skin running from his jaw to his neck.

He was beautiful, and sitting there with his legs slung over his lap, he looked like he belonged there. Shiro wasn’t stupid: a snuggle seat was just another name for a love seat, and of course Atlas made sure it fit them and only them.

“Keith?”

Maybe because he’d slumped slightly in his seat, _maybe_ , but when Keith looked up at him, he did so through those heavy eyelashes of his, long and sweeping like delicate wings, and did Keith not know what he did to him? To his heart?

That errant curl of hair escaped again, and Shiro couldn’t stop himself from reaching out, tucking it back. It felt like silk; how on earth did he have hair so silky when half the time it was a wild tangle with a mind of its own? He let his fingers linger there, by his ear, and he could feel the warmth of his cheek against his hand. He was so drawn that next he knew, his hand was cupping Keith’s cheek, thumb sliding against the scar there.

And if that smile stopped his heart, the way Keith leaned into the touch, sighing and closing his eyes, would start it again. If Keith, who had suffered in that fight more than Shiro could ever imagine, could be so serene upon having his hand against that scar, then all Shiro could do in kind was to learn to forgive himself.

“We,” and he had to swallow, “we probably should talk.”

A nod against his hand, a soft, “Yeah.”

“But… just for now. Just for now —”

_“Let me tell you. Let me tell you that I love you.”*_

“— may I kiss you?”

Keith opened his eyes, and instead of stopping or starting, Shiro’s heart simply expanded. In those eyes lay years of trust, faith, devotion. For a boy who’d gone without love for so long, Keith didn’t seem to know how to do it any other way than with everything he had. It should be overwhelming. It should be too much.

But for a man who thought himself broken for so long, it was just right.

“Of course, Shiro.”

In the lab, Pidge watched a red-lined figure rise up to a purple-edged one, watched the two colours mix at the point of contact. She shook her head before yelling, “Hunk! You owe me twenty bucks!”

“Aw, _man_ …”

There was nothing more heartening — except perhaps the sight of Keith himself, stronger and healthier than ever — than watching the footage from that first night. The way the five colours bled into the sixth, the red, before Keith’s barrier absorbed it all, glowing and growing brighter as the night wore on.

Since then, there would be at least two Paladins cuddled down with Keith at bedtime, Shiro almost always one of them. He was content to share Keith, at least for now, though twice so far he had to convince Atlas to put his and Keith’s rooms back the way they were and not quite combine them into shared quarters. Both times, the ship crooned quiet disappointment.

Baby steps. Soon. Soon.

They had their talks, in the early hours when they were the only two in the cuddle room, over a quiet breakfast well before anyone else was awake, or during their pre-dawn walks to catch the sunrise. Sometimes Shiro cried, sometimes Keith did, sometimes they cried together, holding each other tight until the pain and sorrow passed. But slowly everything resolved, and Shiro didn’t know why he ever thought he would be better off hiding everything from Keith, why he could never deserve the man Keith was, when there was no one else on this Earth — in this known universe — who understood him better, who could listen without prejudice and love without question.

“Do you want to make a place for him?” Keith asked as they retreated from Cal Kogane’s grave, white lilies left glowing against the stone.

“Him?”

“The other you,” he said, so simply, so easily that it stunned Shiro to stillness. They’d talked about the fight, about the words said, about the scar. About how the man who thought he was Shiro didn’t have his own quintessence, which was why the others didn’t see him on the astral plane, but that did not make him any less a person. They’d talked about what happened between the Shiro who’d died and the Shiro who wasn’t Shiro and what all of it meant for the Shiro who was here now.

When Shiro failed to reply, Keith went on. “He was his own person. He was you. I don’t think — no, I _know_ he didn’t believe any different. He was you until Honerva took over, and he fought her until he couldn’t. And when he failed her, she discarded him, left him to die.”

“I let him die,” Shiro said.

Keith shook his head. “That’s not what you told me, and you know it.”

Because Keith listened without prejudice, he also remembered without prejudice, and Shiro knew that Keith was right. In their brief confluence, the other him had cried and begged for forgiveness, said that he was sorry, so sorry, that he loved them all, that he loved Keith most of all, that he hadn’t asked for any of this.

_“I know. I know you didn’t.”_

_“I can’t stay. I can’t — she’s pulled all her power away, and I don’t… I don’t have a life force of my own. Please. You’re here. Take my body.”_

_“It’s not fair —”_

_“I know it isn’t. But it’s not fair that I stole your life. I stole your love. Let me give it back to you. Let me make it right, let my unasked-for life mean something.”_

It had been Shiro’s own guilt that made the transition so hard, that nearly killed him again. He’d felt his other self fade into nothing, leaving only his memories, and in his guilt he resisted taking up the space that was left behind. Resisted until he heard Keith’s voice, until he dreamt of Keith and nothing else.

He reached for Keith’s hand without looking, knowing he’d find it. He let their fingers interlock between them as they walked. “What did you have in mind?”

Keith shrugged, even though his smile was knowing. “Name him. He shares your birthday, and he died the day you came back. Then it’s up to you. We can find a plot here, or you could have a shrine like you had for your grandfather.”

By the time the Atlas left Earth to pursue Honerva, they held a small, private funeral for Takara Shirogane. In their shared quarters, Shiro set up a small shrine, like the one he once had for his grandfather, that his grandfather once had for Shiro’s own parents. Upon that shrine were the inscribed names of his grandfather, his parents, and Takara, but also Cal Kogane, and there were very few things more reassuring, more steadying than seeing Keith in full armour, in quiet prayer before the shrine hours ahead of a mission.

But there was still more to do, before that would come to pass.

It had been a busy couple of days, but Shiro finally wrangled an evening off and immediately went to find Keith. The mess was quiet: maybe they could catch up over dinner together. Or maybe they could go out? There wasn’t much out but Hunk had mentioned a few food stalls that had set up nice, quiet locations. He could ask, but he knew if he did Hunk would volunteer to cook for them straightaway, and Shiro didn’t want to be a bother. Although Keith did love everything Hunk made so…

His mind was still running a mile a minute when he spotted the reading lamp on in the cuddle room. When he peeked through, Keith was curled up on the love seat, book in hand, Kosmo snoozing on the floor beside him. Something Hunk said came back to him then, about how strangely lovely Keith looked when he was at peace, when he was just being _Keith_ ; how the contrast between the Red Paladin and Keith Kogane made him want to end the war all the more.

Shiro couldn’t help but agree.

“Hey.”

Keith blinked and looked up, eyes wide and so owlish that Shiro was almost taken aback at the reminder that Keith was only twenty-two, gods what on earth was he doing in an intergalactic war? But then that slow, shy smile flickered like a candle on his face, and all Shiro could think of was how much he loved this man before him. “Hey. You’re done for the day?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised to see you all nice and cosy here. Thought you’d be bored out of your mind by now.”

“Aha,” Keith said, holding up his book. “Well, _someone_ was cunning enough to find me all the Wee Free Men books, so I couldn’t actually _not_ read them.”

Shiro smirked at that. “Huh. Fancy that. Whoever did that was pretty smart.”

“And a dork.”

“Possibly,” he returned, and entered the room fully. Shiro bent down to give Kosmo a cursory head-scratch, and as he rose up again he dragged his nose through Keith’s hair, inhaling as he brushed his lips against his head. “I wondered if you were hungry.”

Keith swivelled in his seat, setting his book down and his feet on the floor. “Yeah, I could eat.” He pulled his arms up high into a stretch, long and languid, the sleeves of his oversized sweater dropping from his wrists.

And Shiro froze.

“What is that.”

He meant for it to be a question, but the fear that gripped him was so strong it came out flat and strangled. On Keith’s left wrist was a bracelet, a solid band of metal with a flat wide disc in its centre, and it looked far too much like —

“ _Keith_. What. Is that.”

Immediately, he wanted to take back his tone, take back all those words, because now Keith looked at him with a familiar fear in his eyes, a private one they both shared long ago, before Kerberos. He wanted to take it back because Keith was now cradling that wrist with something akin to guilt, and that in itself was wrong.

“It’s… it’s a monitoring device,” he answered, and Shiro wanted to take everything back because Keith shouldn’t ever sound so _small_. “Pidge, Sam, and Ryner designed it. It’s, um… it’s supposed to keep track of my vitals, when my accelerated Galra hyper-state… thing, kicks in. Once it’s calibrated, it will — Pidge said it’ll help stabilize me at a lower level of hyper-state, and help me come back down so I don’t stay in that state for too long. At least that’s… the theory?”

Shiro couldn’t take his eyes off the damned thing. It was too familiar, but how many bracelet designs were out there, really? And Pidge hadn’t known. Memories of stinging pain, sleepless nights, schooling his features whenever his electro-stimulator went off so no one would know that he was on a clock and all he could do was fight to prove that he wasn’t going to fail no matter how much everyone expected him to.

A clock that no longer applied to him.

“— iro? Shiro, what’s… oh my god, Shiro you’re _crying_. Shiro?”

Shiro looked — really looked now — and Keith was up on his knees on the seat, cradling his face between his hands, and Shiro recognized every scar and callous on those long clever fingers against his skin, the papery softness of his thumbs as he wiped tears away. There was a furrow between his dark brows, a questioning frown marred his face, and it was so much like Keith to be more worried about _him_ than about himself.

He reached up with his left hand, to grasp at Keith’s left, pulling it away, fingers sliding over the bracelet before holding him tight by the wrist, and if only, if only just holding him here and now would stop that possible inevitability. But Shiro knew better. He’d been there, facing death since he was a teen, facing death in an arena, in the galactic battlefield. He’d _died_.

And now the man who’d brought him back to life was wearing a bracelet, on a clock, except they didn’t know when it would run out.

_It’s not fair._

“What isn’t?” Oh, but he’d said that out loud. “Shiro, what isn’t fair?”

He keened, biting the sob that was threatening to break through his chest in half. “This,” he croaked. “All this. I never wanted — I never thought… Gods, Keith. I’m going to lose you.”

“No.” Shiro wanted so much to believe him. He did. He could see the steel in Keith’s eyes, the knife-edge at his mouth. “No, you won’t. I’m not going anywhere. Not if I can help it.”

“You don’t deserve this —”

“Neither do you, Shiro.”

“Keith,” and he knew he had to tell him now, “it’s gone. My disease. This body doesn’t have it. I’m not… I’m not dying, anymore.”

They stared at each other, the moment suspended between them, and Shiro watched Keith understand. Years ago, a lifetime ago, a boy was told his best friend was slowly dying, that it was only a matter of time, and space travel was only going to accelerate it. That if his best friend came back, that boy would have only a handful of years left with him. Now that boy was a man, a man whose life was now in a balance no one had worked out yet, and his best friend was no longer dying because his body was essentially brand new.

Their positions were reversed, and Shiro had never meant for it to be this way. He could see the flash of joy, of relief in Keith’s eyes, but he also watched them flick to his bracelet, to his uncertain mortality. What would they do now? Shiro couldn’t keep Keith away from the war any more than Adam could stop him from going to Kerberos. But he wanted Keith to be safe, to live. He wanted to be selfish, but there was too much at stake.

He buried his face in the crook of Keith’s neck, letting his tears fall, never letting go of his hand. Keith said nothing, his free hand combing through his silver hair, rubbing circles at the nape of his neck, anything to comfort him.

Neither of them were hungry after.

“You do understand what we’re asking of you, son?”

Keith glanced up to the observation deck of the training area. Sam, Ryner, and Pidge were there, as well as Kolivan and Krolia. Beside them, Lance and Romelle, as ever reluctant to be away from the Red Paladin. “I understand, Commander Holt.” He fastened his helm, checked that his bracelet was active and secure under his vambrace. A mental check told him his shield was ready, his bayard was with him, and his blade was at his back.

Past the doors, he knew a medical team lay ready and waiting.

“In order to accurately calibrate your bracelet, we need to find your optimum point of hyper-state, the safest point for you to maintain without risk of… failure,” Sam said, and Keith appreciated his concern. He was a good man who’d embraced the entire Voltron team as his own family, just as he’d taken Shiro in when he was a lonely cadet. But he also understood what Keith needed to do, what they all did, if they wanted to win this war. “But to do that, we need you to reach that point of failure.”

“With all due respect, sir, we did go over this twice before at the briefing.”

Sam allowed himself to chuckle, because if the mood didn’t lighten somehow Keith wasn’t sure if he could do this — except that he would, because he needed to. “I’ll give you that, Keith. I just want you to be sure. This is dangerous.”

Keith huffed, smirked a dagger smile. “No more dangerous than everything else we do around here.” Sam had to use Shiro’s brain as an interface back on Sendak’s warship; the least Keith could do was fight until his own heart stopped.

“Keith.” His mother’s voice was immediately soothing, despite her terrible worry underneath. “We will be right here. You’re safe.”

“I know, Mom. Love you.”

Lights and sirens came on, and Kolivan began the countdown to the training sequence. It would be difficult, as difficult as the Trials of Marmora, if not more so. Keith was only glad that Allura and Coran found a way to keep Shiro away from the training sector, because he wouldn’t let this happen, even if it was going to help in the long run. Shiro would understand, and _wouldn’t_ understand, in equal measure. Head and heart.

Keith’s head told him, _this is only prolonging the inevitable. You may not see the end of this._

The first droids flashed into being, and he sprung like a cat. Now that he knew how it all worked, he couldn’t help but marvel at it: the surge of adrenaline flashing through him, sparking speed and power; the way his heart-rate climbed and climbed and held, how he became both steel and wind. Half a minute had three droids down and three more in their place.

His head said, _You’re going to die, one way or another. Shiro… you’re going to break his heart._

But as droid after droid fell to his swords in a violent ballet, his heart spoke louder. Not the physical thing, the thing that would tire and weaken and one day fail altogether, but the essence that made him the Guardian Spirit of Fire.

_I will fight. I will live. I will see them all safe. I will see Shiro safe. I will see him happy._

_I will fight. I will live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, lines marked with an '*' are taken, with permission, from [FroldGapp's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroldGapp/pseuds/FroldGapp) [Crashing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664179/chapters/36386970#workskin).
> 
> It's funny how this fic ended up being about mortality. I hadn't meant for that. I did, however, mean to accidentally solve a couple of issues in canon, so that's always nice, and it'll all come to pass in the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to be the death of me, I swear to gods. There will be one more chapter. Just ONE, dammit. 
> 
> So here I solved a few canon conundrums: a) Allura having to sacrifice herself to save the universe, b) Keith's quintessence sensitivity, and c)... well, there was something else DW forgot about. You'll find out.

He could no longer say how many times he’d ended up in the medical wing of the Atlas, how many nights they’d all slept together in a desperate pile in the cuddle room, as if pinning him between them all on that ridiculous bed could keep him alive. Each and every time, he’d fought, he’d pushed. Pidge, Sam, and Ryner kept adapting their tech, and he kept adapting his fighting style. His bayard never became that laser cannon ever again after that one instance, but in one frantic skirmish his sword was replaced with a bladed staff, giving him better range, defence, and leverage.

Kolivan told him it bore a striking resemblance to an ancient Galran glaive, the blade sharp and curved and beautiful, the signature weapon of the most elite royal guard of Daibazaal.

It was useless, here and now, where the heart of the universe was collapsing in on itself.

The witch had lured him to her, the pull of quintessence strong enough that by the time he found himself separated from the other Paladins and Shiro, it was too late. She laid the blame for everything at his feet: Zarkon’s first defeat in seizing the Black Lion, Project Kuron’s failure, Lotor’s death, the dissolution of her druids. Even in her vengeful hysteria she had been poisonous and formidable, but Keith was half Galra, a Blade of Marmora, and he had two solid years of training under his mother’s tutelage.

Honerva had taunted that it wouldn’t be enough.

_“You took my son away from me. I will make sure your mother suffers as I have!”_

And that was where he had a lapse. Where he understood her, just in that moment. Everything she’d known was gone, and she lashed out at what was left. Everything he’d known had gone, too, and he, too, had lashed out. But he’d been powerless to change it. That powerlessness silenced him.

Honerva had the power to remake the universe. And that had driven her mad.

The lapse had been enough for her to get close, to sink her poisoned claws into and up his ribcage, finding that vulnerable spot just beneath his cuirass. Blinding white pain had taken his senses then, but with her close enough, he had managed to speak.

_“All Lotor wanted was to be loved. But your corrupted quintessence blinded you, and you couldn’t see him.”_

Not the way Shiro had seen him, when he felt invisible, unlovable. It only took one man to save Keith. One man’s love and faith and care. One man was the difference between Keith and Lotor, between Keith and Honerva, and he would repay the universe for that kindness.

Honerva had hesitated enough for him to break free of her grip, even though he knew it was too late. She’d caught his left side; he remembered Shiro’s wound, all that time ago, spreading and poisoning him, but Shiro was bigger, stronger, the wound on the right and away from his heart. His bracelet had vibrated wildly on his wrist, and unwilling to give himself away, he’d smashed it with the hilt of his Marmoran blade.

He hoped Pidge would forgive him. That they all would, when this was over.

He and Honerva had traded more blows, and he’d held his ground once he could reach the highest point of his hyper-state. Quintessence still blinded her, as she hadn’t sensed the others, but Keith had, and all he had to do was feint out of reach so Allura’s lance could pierce right through her.

As she laid dying, Honerva seemed to return to herself, her druid markings receding back to her small Altean ones. She’d begged for Allura’s hand, so she could show her that she had loved Lotor, she had, she’d just wanted him back…

But Keith had knelt down beside her, too, and very quietly said:

_“You’ll find him. When you are cosmic dust. And when you do, I hope you’ll both find forgiveness.”_

That had been the end of Honerva.

With her death, the essences of the four First Paladins and the guardian of Oriande were finally set free, but Oriande Castle itself was crumbling around them, and there was no way to stop the collapse, not enough power to push everything back to equilibrium so the heart of the universe would beat once again.

In the end, Keith survived this long, but they were all going to die.

Already, the First Paladins had sacrificed their essences to stem the destruction. Allura was pouring all her alchemical power into the rift, but she was only slowing it down.

“Allura, you can’t keep this up!”

“We don’t have a choice, Lance! We’re the only ones left who can save all of existence!”

Pidge kept her white-knuckled grip on both Keith and Shiro’s hands, shaking as her tears escaped her. “God, it’s like I can hear all these echoes. All those universes dying…”

That was when he heard the first note. Or what he could only describe as a note. It was just like back on Earth, when he felt the Blue Lion call out to him even though she wasn’t actually his. She had called, and he hadn’t known how, then, but he’d answered, and the more she called, the more he answered, the more he understood.

_“Mom? That… word you call me sometimes. The one I can’t pronounce.”_

_“Mmm. What of it?”_

_“Does it mean anything?”_

_“Oh. It… well. It seemed right, when you told me about how you found the Blue Lion, and about your bond with the Red one. I felt it in you, when you were born, but now I am more certain.”_

_“Of what?”_

_“That word. It means **soul echo**.”_

“Allura,” he called, and he felt oddly far away, but he knew he was right there: Pidge was holding his hand, Shiro was at his shoulder, and _Black was calling out to him_. “It doesn’t have to be you alone. I can… we can do this. All of us.”

Oriande Castle shuddered around them when Allura stopped her work. They clustered closer together, just the six of them. Somewhere out there the Lions waited. Somewhere further away the Atlas was trying to reach them, for all the good it would do. Allura asked her silent question, and Keith looked to Pidge.

“Katie. Set up the quintessence visuals. I need to see.”

Something about him, about his calm, the way he called her _Katie_ , sent Pidge into motion, regardless of their dire circumstance. She pulled up the software on her vambrace and held it up to him.

Black called out to him, he echoed back, and something in him _ignited_.

“Whoa! You’re… holy _shit_ Keith, you’re spiking! This is a _crazy_ amount of quintessence! How are you —”

Keith caught Lance’s eye, nodding. “What you told me once. Perfect pitch. It’s like… I can feel the quintessence, I can feel its voice, and if I call back, if I match its voice…”

Allura gaped, wide-eyed. “Perfect resonance. Keith. That’s why you’re so sensitive to it. You can echo quintessence.”

“Wait, like the Blue Lion’s sonic cannon?” Hunk asked, straightforward even though not a minute ago he was on the verge of panic. “Except not with like, cloaked objects but with quintessence itself? That… would explain so much!”

“But how does it help?” Lance fidgeted, making his way closer to Allura. “If Allura’s alchemy alone can’t fix this, and if Keith is the only one who can do this, how is this gonna do anything?”

Keith took a deep breath, centring himself. He thought of the shrine in his quarters with Shiro. About his mother, out there somewhere. Romelle, who was now his _sister_. Kosmo. Coran. The family right here with him. “I’m echoing Black, right now. You just need to… focus. Like when we flew the Lions with just our bonds. Voltron is — it’s unity. If we find our echoes, if we each hit that resonance, maybe we can do something.”

Allura went first, her alchemy and lineage making it easy for her to find Blue’s voice, and to call back to her. Lance was next, with the principle simple enough, and his quintessence also spiked. Pidge, then Hunk, and in Keith’s head the voices were so loud it was almost overwhelming. It was all inside him but it was also around him and it was like breathing underwater in all its crushing possibility.

The pain in his side increased a hundredfold, but he held on.

“Katie. What’s it look like?”

“I can’t believe this… we now have almost as much quintessence as the First Paladins. But is that going to be enough?”

Keith knew it wouldn’t be. There was another step. “Allura. I need your help, I don’t know how to do this…” He reached for her with his right hand, and she took it. “Can you… do you think we could match my resonance with yours?”

Allura’s eyes lit up. “Yes — yes! Oh, if all five of us could meet in a single resonance! But we’d need to —”

“Use me as an echo chamber?” Keith interrupted, a small crooked smile on his face. “Yeah. We can do that.”

“Will it hurt you?” Hunk asked, kind, sweet, wonderful Hunk, and Keith wanted nothing more than to get that man home safe to his family. “’Cause I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“I don’t know,” and he meant that. He didn’t know, and he wouldn’t tell them anyway if it did. “But we have to try.”

It didn’t hurt. What it was, was the sensation of two voices harmonizing inside him: his own and Allura’s, Black and Blue’s. He’d never seen an orchestra, only heard them in recordings, but he imagined that this was what it felt like, when two different sections met in a single arrangement. Quietly, he could hear a third section, loud and bright, the opposite of Allura’s smooth coolness, and when he felt a hand wrap around his bicep, he knew it was Lance, at his right, where he vowed he would always be.

A large hand took his free one, and here was a nurturing warmth that was solid and grounding: Hunk. Then the bright whistling of trees and life and song, high and forever young, and Keith looked down to see Pidge with both her hands around his arm, pressing her forehead against him.

It was so, so much. It had to be enough.

He felt a burning — Shiro had told him, much later on, that when he saw through the Black Lion’s eyes, his usually indigo eyes had glowed a brilliant pale blue of the purest quintessence — and he wondered if that was what he looked like now, with that heat pressing behind them.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

He took their five united voices, took their harmony, and sang it out into the rift.

Shiro could only watch helplessly as the five Paladins poured their hearts and souls into the rift, wishing he was still one of them, wishing he still had a bond of quintessence so he could help them. They stood together almost as if they were mimicking their positions in Voltron, with Keith at their core, and Shiro wanted to be there, too. He was so scared for them, so scared for Keith. He looked so worn and tired, and there was something… off. Something was wrong, and as ever Keith was hiding it well, and there was no time to question him.

It was such a miracle to behold, greater than seeing the Lions flying without them in their pilot seats. They were so strong together, but he couldn’t help but feel that it’s still five people against a collapsing universe. He wanted to help, he _needed_ to.

His heart froze when he heard a cry of pain: Keith.

“Dude! You okay?”

“I’m… I’m okay, Lance,” but he was breathless, something in his voice wound taut. “It’s a lot.” There came a low whine, and Shiro could see his eyes scrunched tight. “We have to keep going —”

“Not if it’s hurting you!” Hunk called back, making good on his word.

“That can’t matter right now! If we don’t do this there won’t be anything left!”

Shiro wanted to scream. There had to be something he could do. Maybe he could call the Atlas, maybe they had enough firepower to stop this. Or if the convergence of the Balmera was still there. Something, anything —

**_Takashi Shirogane._ **

He blinked, and he was alone. Oriande Castle, the Paladins, the rift, were all gone, replaced by a vast field of stars. For a moment, he panicked — _oh god I’m back there, I’m back there_ — but the stars were pale blue and bright, not the shadowed beauty of violets that was signature to the astral plane.

**_No, it is not the astral plane of the Black Lion. This is my domain._ **

Shiro turned, and the most magnificent creature stood before him: a huge white lion, with a starlit mane and fur in all the shades of all the moons, and eyes the clear blue of quintessence. Its — _his_ — presence was almost familiar, almost like the Black Lion but older, so, _so_ much older. He almost wanted to reach out to the lion, but he couldn’t help but be cowed by the strength and power the creature exuded.

**_You are strong, Takashi Shirogane. Loyal, and honourable. Your heart is true, that even the witch’s facsimile of you could not help but be you. Through her I found you. You may not remember me, but I have not forgotten you._ **

“You’re… you’re the Guardian of Oriande.”

**_I am._ **

Somewhere beyond the realm he stood within, he could hear the voices of the Paladins, his friends, his family. One of them, his love and life. He turned away from the lion, and what he heard chilled him.

_“I don’t know if Keith can keep holding this!”_

_“We’re so close, dammit, we’re so close —”_

_“C’mon, buddy, you gotta talk to me! Tell me what’s going on!”_

_“… I feel like I’m being torn apart…”_

“Please!” Shiro cried, facing the white lion again. “I have to help. I need to — I can’t lose them. I can’t lose _him_. There must be something I can do!”

The lion dipped his mighty head, taking two steps forward, his stride so long that that was all it took to come right up to Shiro’s face. They stood, eye to eye, and the lion considered, while Shiro made himself wait.

**_There is._ **

“What is it? Please, I’ll do anything. Please —”

 ** _You were once the Guardian Spirit of the Sky. Do you remember? That is who you became when the Black Lion chose you. I am the White Lion. My place is here in Oriande, but soon it will be no more, and I will have no place to be. I would wish to remain with my sisters, if you would accept me._** The lion made a chuffing sound, and Shiro wondered if he was laughing. **_Perhaps I could become friends with your Atlas._**

Shiro found himself nodding, found his racing heartbeat slowing to a gentle thunder. He licked his lips, finding them dry, and straightened his back, swallowing. “What do I have to do?”

With a shake of his mane, the lion leaned forward so he could press his muzzle to Shiro’s forehead, and the feeling was so warm, so comforting, that Shiro could only close his eyes.

**_Takashi Shirogane. Guardian Spirit of Light._ **

His eyes were still closed, but he could feel the stars around them flare and burn, their incandescence lighting up the dark. Once upon a time, all he wanted to do was touch the stars. And here, now, briefly, he became one.

He was going to die. Even if he could hold out much longer, he would die. He kept that fear locked in his heart, buried so deep the others would not feel it. There was so much to regret: did he tell his mother he loved her? Did he hug Kosmo enough? Had he told Romelle how much he loved having her as a sister? At least he’d prayed at the shrine. At least he’d paid his respects, spoken to his father. Asked the names etched there to please, please, look after Shiro.

And oh, _Shiro_. There was never enough time.

 _I love you_ , he called to the universe, hoping it would become part of his echo, hoping that it would travel on and on forever and ever. _I love you, I love you, I am so sorry, Shiro…_

Just as he bit back his tears, he felt… engulfed, as if he was standing on the shoreline and a tremendous wave had crashed over and around him, the force as startling as it was strangely benevolent. It was as though a pair of arms encircled him from behind, crossing over his chest like a harness. There was a wall of heat against his back, a presence: the grazing of a familiar jawline against his shoulder, lips in his hair.

_I’m here. I love you._

Keith inhaled a sharp gasp as a sixth voice joined their five, then smiled, tipped his head back.

Sighed out into the rift, and everything was muffled in the meeting of the light and the endless dark.

The rift was closed, and the heart of the universe beat once more.

Lance and Allura whirled around each other, peppering each other with tiny kisses, laughing and crying at the same time. Hunk was all-out sobbing on his knees, the adrenaline drop making him shaky and nauseated, and Pidge stood by him, rubbing his back as she hugged him tight. Shiro had been by his side until his comm went off, and now that the rift was gone, there was no longer any interference, and the voices of the Atlas crew pierced through the ruins of Oriande Castle, asking frantic questions. Shiro stepped away to answer, relief and delight colouring his replies.

Keith smiled silently to himself. He couldn’t really feel the pain in his ribs anymore, but not because it had faded. The druid’s quintessence healed him once; he didn’t think he’d be so lucky for it to work a second time. For now he enjoyed what he had, watched his team — his family — celebrate. Lance could go home safe to his family. So could Hunk. Pidge could go back to Colleen and Sam and soon Matt would be back with them, too. Allura would have Coran waiting for her, and Romelle, and the other Alteans that were now free of Honerva’s deceit.

_I will see them all safe._

He shifted his gaze to Shiro, who was animatedly reporting to the Atlas, giving instructions on retrieving them and the Lions, asking them to navigate their path carefully as Oriande Castle was still in a delicate state. They were all safe, he reported, grinning broad and bright. It was over.

Keith breathed, and took in Shiro’s silver starlit hair, his stormy steel eyes. The scar across his nose, his slightly too-large ears. And that smile. That smile that dimpled one cheek and not the other. Shiro, free of his disease, free of Zarkon, free of Honerva.

_I will see Shiro safe._

It was the oddest feeling, the moment his heart stopped. Maybe he was only aware because he was half Galra, he was certain it wasn’t a thing with humans. He took a deep breath and let himself memorize Shiro’s face, his voice, his booming laugh as Pidge bundled into him. He waited, until Shiro looked up and their gazes met.

Keith hoped that Shiro could see, that he would understand: _I love you so much, Shiro_.

He exhaled, and he just about caught the moment Shiro’s smile vanished, when his eyes widened in fear and he shoved Pidge away, when he moved, a hand outstretched to him.

_I’m so sorry._

Keith let his eyes close with his breath, let everything come to a hushed, painless stop.

“ _Keith, no!_ ”

He was fast enough to reach him before he hit the floor, enough to catch him in his arms as his legs gave away. Fast enough to ease him down and cradle him close. But he knew he was still too late.

“Keith, Keith, no, please no.” He was back in the Black Lion again, holding a dead body, again. He ran his flesh and blood hand through Keith’s hair, brushing his bangs back, swiped his fingers down the slope of his nose, along his jaw, thumbed away a single tear-track from his cheek. He keened, high and painful, because Keith was gone and still the Red Paladin smiled. “Please…”

“Shiro, let him go, move!”

Shiro’s head snapped up the same time his grip on Keith hardened, pulling him even closer, shielding him from Lance’s approach.

“No, I mean it! Move! We can still save him!”

That did it. He let go, set Keith down gently on his back, but refused to move away. Lance growled, accepting that these were the conditions he had to work with, and quickly unclasped Keith’s cuirass, lifting it off him. “I _told_ you, dammit,” he muttered, angry despite the tears running down his face. “I told you to _not_ make me do this again, you son of a bitch —” Shiro watched as Lance slipped something out from a little compartment in his vambrace, something small and metallic.

When Shiro looked back down at Keith, he saw two things: the deep glowing claw marks, and four tiny golden dots on Keith’s bodysuit, right above his heart, arranged in a diamond.

“Lance, wait, what are you —”

Lance didn’t wait. Whatever it was in his hand, he laid it on Keith’s unmoving chest, brows knitting as he seemed to check its placement. Once he was sure, he placed his palm over the object, and slammed his other fist down on top of his hand.

“Lance!”

Shiro bodily shoved Lance away, confused at the Blue Paladin’s behaviour, but with his hands out of the way, Shiro could now see a diamond-shaped plate, like a brooch, with a crystal embedded in its frame. It sparked at first, and then glowed, steady and bright; it pulsed, once, twice, and at its third flash Keith seemed to jolt, and his chest rose and fell, rose and fell in shallow swells.

Keith was alive. Shiro couldn’t believe it, didn’t think he’d be lucky a third time, but he was breathing, and a flush slowly crept up his pale cheeks.

“What — what did you —”

“An ICD, except, well, without the ‘I’, I guess,” Lance said, his voice trembling. He swiped a hand across his eyes, rubbing them as if that would take the exhaustion away. “Powered by a Balmera crystal. Pidge designed it, in case Keith decided to do something monumentally stupid. I knew something was up when his bracelet didn’t ping any of us. I thought he was okay, after… after whatever it was we just did.”

Carefully, Shiro collected Keith back into his arms, relishing in the warmth of his body, the way his chest expanded as he breathed, the peculiar, hypnotic way the crystal pulsed in time with his heartbeat. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

Lance raised his head, levelled Shiro with a look that made him both feel so proud, but also so stupid. “I’m his right hand. It’s my job. Just like he’d have done for you.”

Shiro managed a weak nod as a sob left him, and he bent down to kiss Keith’s closed eyelids. “Thank you, Lance. God, thank you so much.”

Pidge, Allura, and Hunk came to join them, huddling together just as they would in the cuddle room. Allura placed her hands over Keith’s wounded side, emitting a soft glow around the deep claw marks.

They’d won. They got this far. They just needed to get home, needed to be together, and hope that they would still be all together.

“I’ve done all I can, Shiro, but I have no way of knowing how long he’d been wounded, how long Honerva’s poison had been in his body,” Allura said, one hand holding Keith’s, the other rubbing Shiro’s back. Once again, they were in a med bay. Once again, Keith lay silent, while Shiro stayed beside him, waiting. This time, Kosmo could not be convinced by anyone to leave the room, not Krolia, not Romelle. He sat, ever loyal, next to Shiro’s chair, his head resting on Shiro’s lap.

Shiro sighed, absently stroking Kosmo’s thick mane. Allura was right: they’d done all they can. She’d used her alchemy to draw out as much of the poison as she could. It had been their best bet, without the healing pods of the Castle of Lions. Shiro hated that Honerva had injured Keith the same way she did him, only so much worse. The wound was deeper, at a more vulnerable part of Keith’s already overtaxed body, further weakened by their incredible effort to save the universe. Pidge’s ICD brought Keith back, but the damage to his heart was severe, and his hybrid biology meant that repairing was all they could do. A heart transplant was impossible.

When Shiro said nothing, Allura continued. “Ryner and I will do everything we can to see if there is a way to use quintessence to help him, without it causing corruption. Kolivan is trying to locate that base from before, where Keith said the quintessence there healed him, but it will take time.”

“He said he didn’t want it,” Shiro said, so softly he wasn’t sure Allura heard, but her hand stilling in its ministrations on his back told him she had. “He didn’t want to risk what happened to Honerva and Zarkon happening to him. He said, it’s the whole reason there was a war at all, and he — he didn’t want that.”

Allura hummed, remembering the conversation they’d all had together. Keith had been so sure, so insistent. He couldn’t have believed it would be that simple, that they would just sit back and do nothing. “Would you have done it, if you hadn’t promised him?”

“In a heartbeat.” The tears came again, and he was so tired of crying, so tired of being afraid that he’d blink and Keith would be gone again. “Gods help me, Allura, I would have done it.”

“Would it be such a betrayal, if all you wanted to do was save him?”

He wasn’t sure if he could get Allura to understand how trust was everything with Keith. There had been no safe places for an orphaned child, nowhere where trust would be honoured, where lies wouldn’t be told. From the moment they met, Shiro had been honest with Keith, for better or worse. Praised him and reprimanded him in equal measure, treated him as an equal with his own autonomy, as his own person. Pushed forward, pulled back. Everything was a balance.

“I promised him once, that I would never give up on him,” he said, recalling the small, battered boy outside Commander Montgomery’s office. “And he promised me that he’d save me as many times as it takes. He kept his promise, Allura. I have to keep mine. I have to trust him, no matter how much it hurts.”

Allura released her hold on Keith’s hand, and lifted Shiro’s left hand to take her place. Shiro’s fingers instantly curled around those long, pale fingers, thumb stroking the skin absently.

“Then we shall all put our trust in him. He will fight, Shiro. I know he will.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a low, steady rumble echoed, and Shiro could feel those sharp blue eyes on him, ancient and powerful and wise. The White Lion knew something, of that he was certain, and for all that his heart was breaking, he allowed himself to smile.

**_You are his Light. He will find you. Be patient._ **

_No. He is mine. We’ll find each other._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to write this sort of thing -- When You Rise, similarly -- while making sure you don't Mary Sue your favourite character. Making sure that there are flaws in power, weakness in strength, stupidity in heroism. It's hard, but it's fun. I hope I did okay. 
> 
> One more to go. I promise. Happy ending incoming.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken so long to update this. But as you can see, it's got away from me again and there will be an epilogue chapter after this one. 
> 
> I cried writing the first section. I cried every time I reread it. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

The stars were perfect and beautiful out in the desert. Against a velvety deep indigo sky in the middle of nowhere with only the red of the sand and mountains and cliffs anchoring them to the earth. Even the moon hung kindly in its sliver state, so her light wouldn’t obscure the millions and millions of stars.

Keith had never seen them so bright.

He understood early on why his father had installed the skylight in the roof, why he kept that ladder around. They would climb up onto the roof that way, sit on the sun-warmed shingles and watch the sun go down and the moon go up and the stars come out. He would sit secure in the space between his father’s legs, lean back against his warm chest, and let his large hand take his little one to point at one constellation or another. Early on, Keith knew no fear of heights, of wide open spaces, of the dark of night.

He sat there now, legs outstretched and leaning back on his hands, tracking the swirl of the Milky Way overhead.

“Hell of a thing, ain’t it?”

Keith stayed still, unwilling to shift his gaze, unwilling to face whatever all this could mean. A large, strong body hefted itself through the skylight and settled easily beside him with a grunt, sore with age. He flicked his eyes down briefly, and caught sight of beat-up combat boots, legs clad in soft denim. He knew, if he turned his head and kept looking, there would be a broad chest and even broader shoulders dressed in an old jacket that might have been a richer colour once, but endless days spent hiking in the sun with a small boy would set it to fade. He wondered if it still smelled the same, of dust and sun and leather.

“Yeah,” he answered at last, pushing the word out around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, it is.”

A low chuckle, and Keith could see the smile even as he refused to turn to look. It made him smile, too, because his father’s smile was magical, because when Cal Kogane smiled no one could help but smile, too.

“How are we here?”

“Well, you probably see this as your favourite place,” came the reply. “No surprise there. Me, though? Just ‘cause my body’s in the ground on Earth, don’t mean I can’t be where you need me. Cosmic dust and all that.”

He had to look now, because his father couldn’t have known about that, about that innocent little thought from so long ago in his life but never a part of his father’s. And there he was, in his sun-kissed glory, stubbled jaw, dark hair (but not as dark his own, and he never worked out how that was), that scar through his eyebrow.

Those eyes — _his eyes_. Shape, colour, right down to the crinkles in the corners.

“Dad,” he whispered, eyes stinging but heart ballooning so fast and hard that he didn’t understand why it didn’t hurt.

Cal tipped his head to face him, and that smile Keith treasured with all his soul grew, lighting up his eyes. “Hey, kiddo.”

Almost at the same time, the two men pulled their knees up, Keith hugging them tight, Cal leaning one powerful forearm across them, turning to fully look at his son. The scrutiny would normally send Keith running, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t because he missed him so much.

“Oh, look at you,” Cal sighed, like a benediction. He reached over, and Keith didn’t balk at the touch, let his father run his calloused fingers through his hair, pushing his bangs back so he could see more, felt that paper-dry palm against his cheek, warm and grounding. “My beautiful baby boy. You look just like your Momma, you know that.”

“Except the eyes.”

A nod. “’Cept the eyes, true. Gotta stake my claim somewhere.”

Keith laughed at that, the sound rough to his ears from the sob that was fighting its way out. His eyes were wet, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He was so happy even though his heart was splintering, but if this killed him, he figured he would be okay with that.

Cal reached behind him, a rustling noise heralding the appearance of a brown paper bag and a double cup holder. “Diner donuts and coffee?”

Keith wanted to laugh again. “ _Those_ donuts? _That_ diner?”

“Like we went anyplace else?” Cal replied with a raised eyebrow, the one with the scar running through it. “Go on. They’re still warm.”

Keith reached into the bag, pulled out a perfectly warm sugared donut — “Real sugar, none of that powdered stuff,” his father used to say — and took a bite, and no matter how careful he was, a little trickle of jam still escaped to the corner of his mouth. They were just as he remembered, pillowy and sweet with a crispy crust, the jam thick and sharp. Together they ate in silence, watched the stars wheel across the sky above them, until Keith was licking sugar off his fingers and swiping smeared jam from his mouth with a napkin.

He nodded towards the cup holder between them. “I wasn’t drinking coffee when… When.”

“Ah well, you’re a man now, ain’t ya?” Cal said, handing him one of the cups. “Twenty? Twenty-one?”

“Nearly twenty-three. Kinda. Sorta.”

Cal barked a sharp laugh of delight. “Well damn. Should’a brought up the ol’ Gentleman Jack then,” he said, before shaking his head and repeating, softer, “ _Damn_.”

Keith didn’t mean to, but he saw the shine in his father’s eyes, and he looked away when Cal raised a hand to his face, still smiling even as the fingers pressed against his eyes. He had enough memories of seeing his father cry, even though the man had never noticed. Instead Keith quietly sipped his coffee — strong, rich, creamy; just as his father liked it, as he liked it — and turned his gaze back up to the stars. Thinking about it now, they were moving faster than they ought to be, as if it was a light show just for them, dancing and falling and spinning against the great dark.

“Dad? Where are we, really?”

Cal stretched one leg forward, setting his arm across the one still bent close, coffee in his hand. “Well, to be quite honest, kiddo, I’m not sure. I think, maybe, you’re a little lost right now, so you came here. And I am wherever you are.”

“How did you find me?”

His father tipped in head in that familiar way again, and Keith couldn’t help but be endeared, be thankful that he’d somehow inherited that tic. “Oh, little spark. I know it’s been a long time, but I’d know your soul anywhere. When you called out into the rift, into the heart of the universe, I heard you. I heard your perfect little echo and I knew it was you. And I did what any good father would, and I came right running.”

A slow fire crept up his face, remembering what it was he’d said into the rift. “Oh.”

“Now, nevermind that those words weren’t meant for me. But one day, you’ll understand: when you hear someone you love call out, you get a move on. Or maybe,” and he gave Keith a sly wink, “you already know what that’s like.”

“ _Dad!_ ”

“Oh come on, kiddo. I’m gonna miss out on all the shovel talks, lemme have this,” Cal said, roaring with laughter. The sound was so heartrending Keith couldn’t find it in himself to be indignant. Teenage years he should have spent with his dad asking him what time he’d be back, will he be late, who was he going out with, were spent alone at the home before Shiro and the Garrison came along, and even then he had no one else. Then Shiro was gone, leaving him alone again at eighteen. He was nineteen when he joined an intergalactic war, and he had to grow and leave behind the boy who just wanted his dad.

And he couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t stop the hiccup and the first tears, couldn’t stop himself when he said, “I miss you so much, Dad.”

“I miss you, too, little spark,” Cal replied, his smile gentling to something so soft, and Keith stared, willed himself to memorize it, because he never wanted to forget again. “Now, is kinda sorta nearly twenty-three too old to be huggin’ yer old man?”

Keith didn’t hesitate: he threw himself at his father, startling him with a quiet “Oof,” before strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him close and tight. Everything felt right, just as he remembered. He’d been small for his age, when his father had died, despite his Galra genes, so he always seemed all-encompassing, big and strong and warm. How that hadn’t changed, Keith didn’t know, but he basked in it, in how Cal completely surrounded him even though he was twice as tall as when he last held him. Keith had grown broader in the shoulders, too, but not quite matching his father. That he could still feel so small, so protected, set him off fully, and he wept into his father’s chest, fingers clenching at the jacket he knew so well.

He didn’t know what he was saying, between sobs and whimpers. _“I was so lost without you,” “I was so angry,” “You were my whole world,” “You left me behind”, “I didn’t know who I was without you,” “Dad,” “Dad,” “Dad.”_ And in return, his father never stopped moving his hands — one stroking up and down Keith’s spine, the other pushing through and untangling his hair, just the way he used to — and never stopped murmuring quiet reassurances, whispered apologies, gentle hushes. _“I know,” “I know,” “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” “Oh hush now,” “My little spark,” “My baby boy,” “Keith,” “Keith.”_

Somewhere in between, he heard his father begin to hum a familiar tune, sing familiar words. Keith couldn’t believe he’d forgotten this, this particular song, lyrics he only ever associated with his father, even after he realized that he’d changed just one word, to make it fit. He felt himself unfurl, heart opening up and out like a flower long starved of sunlight, and he drank it all in: the words, the voice, the warmth of his father’s arms around him, the gentle sway of their bodies as the song went on.

When the words faded and the moon was nearly full, unable to untangle himself from his father, Keith said, “I want to stay with you.”

“Oh darlin’ boy,” Cal murmured, kissing his son’s hair. “I know you do. And I’d like nothin’ better. But you have your whole life ahead of you now. A time of peace. Friends. Family.” Keith shook his head, clinging tighter, but relented when Cal shifted to grip his shoulders and push him back. He wouldn’t look up, not until Cal tapped his chin to make him do so. _“Eyes up, kiddo,”_ he used to say. He tipped his chin upwards by an inch, but refused to meet his eyes.

Keith knew if he did, it was to say goodbye.

“I know life wasn’t fair to you, Keith,” Cal said with a sad, tired sigh. “I’d’ve moved heaven and hell to get back to you, so you wouldn’t be alone. For that I am so, so sorry. But Keith,” and he reached up, cupped his hand against Keith’s cheek, the one with the scar, thumbing its path while his fingers sank into his hair, “I am so very proud of you. You stayed strong, and you stayed kind. Ain’t a dad in the world wouldn’t be proud of that. The shadows came for you and you never let your spark go out. They stomped on your heart and you never let it go hard. You’ve done enough fighting, baby boy. Time to live. Time to be.”

He couldn’t stop himself — because Cal had a way about him, that when he spoke it was irrefutable truth — and nodded, once, hesitant. He took a deep breath, pursed his lips. Straightened his spine and set his shoulders back, slowly lifted his head to meet indigo eyes like his own.

Cal smiled, a wry, crooked thing, and hummed to himself, like he and the universe had come to an agreement. “There’s my boy. My little spark.”

A flash of silver sailed above them, crossing the sky in a sparkling arc and landing somewhere just forward of the horizon, casting a dome of pale light over the sand. The impact had been silent, but its meaning was loud and clear.

Stepping out of the light was an unmistakable silhouette, tall, broad, and strong. Beside the figure walked an immense lion, its fur and proud mane rivalling starlight and moonbeams.

“Took him long enough,” Cal huffed, as considering as he was amused. “C’mon.”

When they emerged from the shack, Keith nearly tripped over himself at the sight before him: a black lion, her great wings folded back as she sat, lounging just past their porch as if she were nothing more than a house cat. She regarded him, chuffing lowly before rumbling deep, resonant purrs. He could almost swear she smiled.

“Black?”

She stood then, stretched, spread her wings to their full span before tucking them back again. She padded softly over to her Paladin, and Keith stepped down to meet her where she bumped her head against his shoulder in greeting. So many emotions flooded through him, all her complex yet straightforward thoughts flowing in his mind. Above all, one stood out.

_Come home._

Keith looked back at his father, who stood leaning against the porch, like he always used to, just as he remembered. He let his heart break, took a shard of it and hoped, prayed, that it would stay here with his father forever. He would never be whole without him, he knew that. But he was standing there, smiling and unchanging, and it was the greatest gift the universe could ever give him.

“That boy, he sure does love you somethin’ fierce, kiddo.”

It didn’t seem to be the time or place to argue the very idea of Takashi Shirogane being a mere _boy_ , so Keith let it slide. His father was just being a father, after all.

He let himself redress things: here was his father, on the porch, seeing off his only son. Said only son was going to go meet with the man he loved: where were they going, what time would they be back, _have fun be good don’t do anything illegal don’t set fire to nothin’ it’s my night off._

Keith would keep that illusion in his heart till the end of his days.

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” he said, choking on the whisper.

Cal Kogane shrugged. “Then don’t. I’m here. I’m always here. Now and forever.”

Keith nodded, reaching for Black, burying his hand in her ruff that made her stand out amongst her sisters. He looked up again, desperately memorizing his father all over again, again and again, so he would never forget, so he would have this one small keepsake, so that this voice would echo within him for the rest of his life.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, little spark. Now remember: eyes up. Be proud. Be strong. Be kind.”

It felt like shifting an entire world, but Keith took the first step forward, Black beside him. One foot in front of the other, right then left, right then left, and he felt the shack slowly shrink away behind him.

“Hey, kiddo!”

He looked over his shoulder, and oh, he’d been wrong: that smile, the thing like a switchblade that promised devilish mischief — Keith had inherited that from him, too. “You tell your Momma I love her! More than all the stars in all the skies and till the day the ocean doesn’t touch the sand!”

 _God, he’s such a dork_ , Keith thought. And was immediately reminded of someone else.

“I will, Dad.”

And he walked on, the Black Lion beside him, his father and the shack and the skylight and the donuts and coffee fading to nothing, the silver light in front of him growing brighter and warmer and more and more certain.

_Keith._

_I’m here._

Keith woke up breathing underwater.

He was naked, and the water was just the right side of too cold. It didn’t sting his eyes to open them, to look around. Curled on his side as he was, he could see the smooth stone floor beneath him. He wasn’t sure how he was breathing without an apparatus; was this a pod of some kind? He shifted, stretching his legs out and finding nothing at his feet.

Something shadowed the gentle light that filtered through the water, and Keith turned his head up, meeting the distorted image of Shiro’s face above him. Storm-grey eyes shone brightly, but not as bright as his smile. Keith wanted to reach up through the water to him, but his limbs felt so heavy, and he didn’t know how deep the water was…

Strong arms broke through the water’s surface, the warmth of big hands on his back and under his knees shocking, and then immediately comforting. There was more movement in the water, and Keith realized Shiro’s legs were against him, and that he was slowly being lifted out of the quiet cocoon of the water. He tensed, unsure of what would happen if he broke through: if he could breathe here, could he breathe out there?

The water parted over his body, like a second skin sloughing off him. He thought he needed to gasp, to fight for air, but he breathed just the same, as if under water and above water were indistinguishable.

They weren’t on Earth, then.

He blinked water out of his eyes, shivering at the feeling of air against his bare skin, unconsciously curling into Shiro’s warmth. With his cheek pressed against his broad chest, Keith could feel more than hear the rumble of Shiro’s chuckle. “Hey. Hey, baby. Welcome back.”

Keith only snuggled deeper in answer. He was cold. That only made Shiro laugh again, and he didn’t mind: it was a good sound.

Eventually he felt himself deposited onto a bed covered in soft towels, with more draped over him. Shiro’s hands moved all over his body, large and warm and gentle — had he never noticed that the Altean arm stayed warm? — in their ministrations to get him dry. Shiro then collected the ends of the towel beneath his head and pressed against his scalp, squeezing all the damp out of his hair. All this in a comfortable silence, until Shiro was satisfied and he removed the towels, collected him in his arms again, and moved him to a different part of the bed and onto something thick and fluffy. Lifted and tucked his weakened arms into wide, deep sleeves, folded him into more fabric, tied something around his waist.

And then up once more, and down again into a pile of pillows before a deliciously heavy quilt was pulled over him. The bed dipped beside him, and Keith finally opened his eyes as far as he could.

Shiro. Smiling. Silver hair gleaming in the strange, soft light of wherever they were.

“Hi,” and it was an unrecognizable croak of a greeting.

“Do you want something to drink?”

He nodded, and a water pouch was brought to his lips. He sipped, slow and shallow, and it felt like he hadn’t had a drink in weeks. Testing his body gently, he couldn’t find any muscle atrophy: toes and fingers wriggled, ankles and wrists flexed, limbs tensed and relaxed. When the packet was empty, Shiro drew the straw away, disposed of the packet in a nearby waste bin. His hands immediately took one of Keith’s, holding it between his palms as if he were cradling a fragile bird. There were tears in his eyes, and Keith didn’t fully understand.

“Shiro?”

The older man laughed, short, sweet, the motion releasing the first tears despite the brilliant smile on his face. Still, he refused to let go of his hand. “God, Keith. It’s so good to hear your voice. See your eyes. I’m —” His voice wavered, and he tried to steady himself with a deep breath, but a choked sob still left him, his smile undimmed. “I’m so glad to have you back.”

Something was different. Keith couldn’t quite place it, until Shiro lifted his hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles one by one, soft and reverent.

Shiro’s hands were the same size. There was the flesh-and-blood hand that Keith knew so well, and then there was a matching one made of a silvery-white metal, accented with gold. Keith let his eyes follow the line of the arm and found it whole, from wrist to elbow to shoulder. The only evidence of blue light came from the back of the hand, where Allura’s crystal still sat.

“How… how long —” He tried to sit up, but he was so weak, and every time he tried to lift his head something tugged back at him and he couldn’t work out what —

“One hundred and thirty-seven days.”

Keith stopped moving.

“Well, roughly,” Shiro tacked on. “You’ve probably figured out that we’re not on Earth, but the day and night cycle here is pretty close to our wintertime. It’s early October now back home.”

One hundred and thirty-seven days.

Keith tried to lift his head again, wanting to sit up, _needing_ an explanation, but there was that tugging sensation again. He looked over his shoulder —

Hair. _His_ hair.

He blinked, slow and confused, tried to open his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Here, let me.”

Shiro released his hand, reached behind Keith’s back and collected his hair in his two large palms, carefully pulling it forward and over his shoulder. It hung in loose waves, easily past his ribcage. He couldn’t help but card his fingers through it, there was so much of it.

“I don’t —” he swallowed, and tried again. “I don’t understand.”

Shiro regarded him for a moment, before he gave a short nod and stood to help Keith sit up against the pillows. When he sat down, he reached for Keith’s hand again, as if he was afraid of ever letting go.

“Well, we’re on the planet Exiara, for a start. The Atlas is at the edge of its system. It’s remote. Took us six wormholes to get here, and thankfully it managed to escape Zarkon’s notice. I’m not sure what we would have done if we never found it…”

“I thought… I thought I died.”

A pained, haunted look crossed Shiro’s face, and for a moment his eyes were distant. “You did. But it turns out our team is as stubborn as you are,” he said, pointing at the crystal on Keith’s chest. Keith looked down, fingers flying to the device attached to him, eyes going wide at the way the crystal pulsed in time with his heartbeat. “Pidge has taken to calling it your arc reactor.”

Keith let a small laugh escape him. His life couldn’t get any stranger.

“It’s been keeping you alive,” Shiro continued. “But you were so far past exhausted, and Honerva really did a number on you; you wouldn’t wake up. Your heart was… damaged. We thought we were going to lose you, if we couldn’t find a way to fix it. You’re the only human-Galra hybrid we know of, we had no point of reference. There was talk of trying to clone your heart, but —” He barely repressed his shudder, and Keith understood all too well. “I told them that we would need your consent for that. So that wasn’t an option.

“Then the White Lion showed me this place. Not a name, but numbers, patterns, star charts.” Shiro raised a shoulder in a shrug, chuckling. “I ended up with a board much like yours, back in your shack. It’s still in our quarters on the Atlas, I’ll show you when we get back.”

 _The White Lion_. “That… that was you.”

“Me?”

“Back on Oriande. That was you.” Because when he thought he was going to die, when he held his place as the Black Lion and Lance, Allura, Pidge, and Hunk all stood with him in their Lions’ places, they were Voltron as flesh and blood. And there was that moment that washed over him, like a mantle, like wings, and their echo was enough for the universe.

Shiro’s mouth ticked up in a small smile. “Yeah. That was me. He’s with the Atlas. Kinda, parenting her. Sort of. They like each other a lot.”

Keith sank back into the pillows, more awake than he wanted to be. There was a lot to take in, when he had been resigned to his death, when he could only hope that things would be all right even if he wouldn’t be there to see it, experience it with everyone. But here he was, alive. Shiro was alive, and with a new, more practical, more beautiful arm. And from what he could gather, the others — his team, his family — were all okay, too.

“If you’re wondering where everyone is,” Shiro said, and it was no longer surprising that he seemed to read his mind, “Hunk and Romelle only just left after prepping more meals for those of us who are here. By that, I mean me and a crapton of mac n’ cheese.” He laughed, short and self-deprecating, but it squeezed at Keith’s heart: Shiro hadn’t left? At all? “Pidge is on Olkarion, Lance and Allura are due tomorrow. Lance is going to be a little sore that you’re awake now: he kept trying to cut your hair back but Romelle threatened to make earrings out of his balls if he so much as touched it, so there’s that. Your mom is napping with Kosmo down the hall, and Coran has the bridge.”

Of all the things he could think of to say, Keith ended up with, “Was he confused when you said, ‘You have the bridge, Number One’?”

Shiro threw his head back, laughter roaring out of him. Keith smiled, small and sad, wondering how long it had been since Shiro laughed, knowing that he was the cause of that lack of laughter. He waited until he was rubbing a stitch out of his side with his metal hand, an unhandsome snort startling them both when Shiro tried to rein himself in. “Yeah. Yeah, he was —” Shiro had to take a couple of deep breaths so he wouldn’t set himself off again. “He was like, wait, no, but you’re Number One, Number One!”

“I guess that took some explaining?”

“A little. Veronica pretty much fell out of her chair laughing. Apparently her family have whole box sets so she’s going to fix him up with some next time we’re on Earth.”

Keith went still at the thought of Earth. At the thought of it still being there, whole and as they’d left it. That the universe hadn’t ended, and more than that, that he’d _survived_ , when he’d been sure, when he’d _told_ them —

“I still — I still don’t understand…”

And so patiently, Shiro spoke, flesh hand holding his own, unwilling to let go. “Exiara’s waters contain very low levels of quintessence. Something like 0.05%. It makes no difference to the local populace, but to outsiders, it has a healing factor. It’s slow, but it’s there, and so far it’s been able to repair all the damage you took in that last fight. I put you in every morning, and take you out again in the evening. Well, except today, because… you’re awake.”

“And I’m… I’m still… me?”

Shiro’s wide-eyed stare felt like a punch to the gut. He knew that promises were made, perhaps promises that were impossible to keep, but the risks had been too great. He’d told them, but — “Keith. Yes, you’re you. It made me crazy, all the waiting, all the testing. I just wanted to — I couldn’t lose you. But I promised you. We took every precaution possible. That pool, you were eight hours in and twelve out. Every day. We never let you stay longer than necessary. Even though it’s taken all this time. I would have waited, Keith. I would have waited forever if it meant I got you back without breaking your heart by breaking my promise.”

His eyes were burning. One hundred and thirty-seven days. Shiro had put his life on hold for one hundred and thirty-seven days. For him.

“I called in _Slav_ ,” Shiro whined, half-hysterical. “I sent him ahead with Ryner, Pidge, and Allura and made him run through every. Single. Probability. _All of them_. It took weeks. And every day that you weren’t in that pool, I thought I would lose you. I had to keep you in a dark room so that I could see that crystal glowing, otherwise I’d freak out. And —”

Keith couldn’t take anymore. A sob cracked out of him, and his tears fell. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but the child-like noises made themselves heard anyway.

“Keith!” Shiro shifted from the chair to the bed, collecting Keith carefully in his arms, and all Keith could do was bury his face in his shoulder, hands fisting in the soft fabric of his shirt. And everything felt like a strange memory: he’d dreamt this, exactly this, but it was his father. He’d cried into his father’s warmth, clutched at his battered old jacket, and wept for everything he’d lost. Except he couldn’t be entirely sure it was a dream.

_“Cosmic dust and all that.”_

It was Shiro’s voice in his ear, now. Shiro’s lips brushing against his hair, Shiro’s hands holding him and calming him, one warm, one ever-so-slightly cooler. It was Shiro, in all his strength and softness. “It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. You’re okay. I love you so much, baby. I’m so, so happy you’re okay.”

A maelstrom of emotions rushed through Keith, guilt and sadness and love and gratitude. He tried to speak between hiccups, muffled by Shiro’s shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so — I’m so sorry. I didn’t — You shouldn’t have, Shiro, you shouldn’t have —”

Shiro drew back, steadying him by the shoulders, rubbing them down as he kissed his overheated cheeks, his nose, his forehead. “No. No, Keith. Keith, how could I do any less after what you’ve done for me? After what you’ve done for the universe? How could any of us let you go, when we love you so much? When I love you as much as I do?”

That just made Keith cry harder, and Shiro hummed in sympathy, pulling him close once more and holding him tight. “It’s okay. Let it out. There’s a lot of stuff we gotta get through, but we’re gonna be okay. We’re all safe, and we’re all together. We can just be, now.”

By the time Keith was done, Shiro had laid them both down on the bed, with Keith’s head tucked under his chin, his new mass of hair spilling out between them. The sight arrested him for some reason, and he heard himself say:

“What am I going to do with all this _hair?_ ”

Shiro burst into giggles, and this time, Keith went with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise. One more to go. I've loved working on this fic despite how wayward it has been, and I hope you've loved reading it. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome. <3


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